spinspider Posted July 24, 2013 Posted July 24, 2013 I know this would be a better question for Oblivion since no mention is ever really made of the Ayleids in Skyrim, but I'm slightly bothered that 200 years later there's still no real answer to the mystery. Whatever became of the Ayleids, or Heartland High Elves? Did they truly go extinct, or may they still exist in some far reaches of Tamriel? Or were they simply absorbed into the bloodlines of the modern Elven races, like the Nedes were for humans? Nonetheless... I miss the Ayleid ruins. It would have been cool if they'd included some in the southern areas of Skyrim.
Azwraith25 Posted July 24, 2013 Posted July 24, 2013 I know this would be a better question for Oblivion since no mention is ever really made of the Ayleids in Skyrim, but I'm slightly bothered that 200 years later there's still no real answer to the mystery. Whatever became of the Ayleids, or Heartland High Elves? Did they truly go extinct, or may they still exist in some far reaches of Tamriel? Or were they simply absorbed into the bloodlines of the modern Elven races, like the Nedes were for humans? Nonetheless... I miss the Ayleid ruins. It would have been cool if they'd included some in the southern areas of Skyrim. The Ayleids are not that much of a mystery, lorewise. I mean your averege Cyrodill citizen won't know what happened to them because they don't really teach history in Cyrodill (or anything for that matter), which is why they seem like a mystery when you play Oblivion, but most documents relating to the time when the humans rebelled against them paint a rather detailed picture of their fate. So, many of them were killed during the Alessian Slave Rebelion. I mean just Alessia's champion Pelinal is said to have slaughtered whole settlements alone. And while this sounds like an exaggeration if you look up more about Pelinal you will find that he is like Tamriel's version of the Terminator except cooler, alot stronger and crazier. After the Rebelion ended a few Alyeid kingdoms remained as parts of the new Alessian Empire but as the empire and it's laws became more and more anti-elven, over time, they left for Valenwood and High Rock (which was ran by a clan of high elves at the time) where they got absorbed into the local population. I mean if you encounter an altmer with a darker complexion or a taller bosmer he might have an Alyeid ancestor. There are also rumors that some some Ayleid settlements might still be found hidden in the forests of Cyrodill but its been more then a millennium since the last time anyone has seen such a settlement so they don't seem to hold much truth.
RatcatcherOfKvatch Posted July 25, 2013 Posted July 25, 2013 The Ayleids and Ancient Nords were more-or-less contemporaries (Late Merethic). Are the Ayleids going to mess with Alduin and his cult of dragon-shouting worshipers? I don't think so. Imagining the situation from the Ayleid point-of-view: they would see their Snow Elf cousins being obliterated by a cult of fire-breathing wild men led by dragons. It would've looked a little like the Forsworn and their hagravens, only with dragons. Yeah, the view from the South Side of the Jeralls must've looked mighty satisfying to the Ayleids. "Let the Snow Elves and Dwemer fight those dragons and their crazy worshippers. We'll just hang out down here where it's warm." It helps if you imagine the Atmoran migration not as the arrival of Men on a continent full of Mer but as the arrival of dragon politics complete with civil servants of some hominid species unimportant compared to the shock of dragons taking an interest in politics. (As leaders of a religious cult seeking to expand the territory under their control I guess you'd call them fundamentalist-imperialists, examples of which Earth history is replete.) According to what I've read there were dragons all over the place, but the arrival of the Atmorans on Skyrim marks the first time they ever formed dragon-governments. The Men who built Saarthal and their descendants would in their history books put the emphasis on Ysgramor, but if you're an Ayleid you'd see a dragon government with Men as its civil servants. Tell me you'd be in the mood to try to go conquer that. After the dragon rebellion you have Ancient Nords of the bad-enough-to-beat-down-the-dragons variety out looking for some Mer to conquer. By this time the Snow Elves are cannon fodder and the Dwemer riven by internal divisions. A more interesting question than "Why didn't the Ayleids conquer Skyrim?" (Answer: they were too busy soiling themselves at the thought of Skyrim conquering them) is "Where did the Ayleids' human slaves come from?" Anyway it's a brutal Succession War and the Chimer hero Nerevar who clips the scaly dragon wings of the Ancient Nords, turning the Now-Not-So-Ancient Nords to drinking mead, head-butting mammoths, and spinning ever-taller tales of how their King defeated Numinex.
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