Snow Elf History? Time line?

[SpellAndShield]

Just curious, how many thousands of years ago was it that the Falmer were Snow Elves and when were they driven underground and when did they interact with the Dwemer?

[ALittleBird]

It happened in the late Merethic Era, the era before the First Era. It was when Ysgramor and the people from Atmora landed in Skyrim, where they fought with the Snow Elves, who inhabited the land back then. With his Five Hundred Companions, Ysgramor drove the Snow Elves away to Solstheim, where their Snow Prince was defeated by a child; the Snow Elves then fled, and formed an allliance with the Dwemer. From that moment on, they lived underground. But the Dwemer didn't trust them and intoxicated them. :)

[hankas]

http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Lore:Falmer

[JanusForbeare]

It happened in the late Merethic Era, the era before the First Era. It was when Ysgramor and the people from Atmora landed in Skyrim, where they fought with the Snow Elves, who inhabited the land back then. With his Five Hundred Companions, Ysgramor drove the Snow Elves away to Solstheim, where their Snow Prince was defeated by a child; the Snow Elves then fled, and formed an allliance with the Dwemer. From that moment on, they lived underground. But the Dwemer didn't trust them and intoxicated them. :)

 

Anyone else hear the Jarl of Whiterun's voice in their heads as they were reading this?

[ALittleBird]

The Jarl of Whiterun, hah!

I love the Snow Elves :)

[Lachdonin]

We do not have a concrete timeline regarding the Falmer, onyl a roughe sequence of events which, IMO, is spotty.

 

We know that the Falmer lived in Skyrim before the comming of the Nedic settlers.

We also know that they welcomed the Nedic settlers initially.

Then, fearing the massive population boom of the Nedic's, they waged a brutal war against them and killed every human on Tamriel, save for Ysgramor and his sons.

This may also have been related to the descovery of the Eye of Magnus in Sarthaul by the Nedics

Ysgramor returned with the 500 Companions (Which, IMO, is insufficient to commit genocide. I view the 500 Companions as 500 different armies, with each General being a 'Companion')

The Nedic's slaughtered the Falmer, eventually killing their last army and ruler on Solsthiem.

Some surviving Falmer were taken in by the Dwemer

 

Now, this is where, in my mind, things get contradictory.

We are told the Dwemer didn't trust the Falmer, and poisoned them with toxic mushrooms, then inslaved their population

After years of slavery, the Falmer rose up and freed themselves, fleeing into the deep tunnels where they waged war on the Dwemer until the latter dissapeared.

 

My problem is this. That type of behaviour doesn't fit with what we know of the Dwemer, and the only source that says so is a 'scholar' who wrote about it several thousand years after it happened. The 'victim' image also doesn't fit what we know of the Falmer, who were headstrong and very powerful.

 

I tend to fill in some blanks to coincide with other information so it looks more like this.

 

After taking shelter with the Dwemer, the Falmer recover their numbers and power

They then demand the Dwemer help them get revenge. Since the Dwemer don't care, they obviously refuse

The Falmer try to take control of A; Dwemer holds, or B; Dwemer Centurions, and are stopped, causing the distrust

THEN things happen acording to the book.

[ALittleBird]

@Lachdonin

 

Yeah, I guess it weren't literally only five hundred people. It's like the three hundred Spartans at Thermopylae. History tells us they were accompanied by another few thousand men. So it's just glorifying the past again.

[Dukkah]

(Which, IMO, is insufficient to commit genocide. I view the 500 Companions as 500 different armies, with each General being a 'Companion')

 

I don't know. If we're to believe Skyrim, 20 people constitute an army, and 50 constitute a city. (Seriously, did anyone else find this annoying and immersion breaking?)

 

But the Snow Elves were the most beautiful, right? The poison mushrooms explained the blindness, but did it explain how they collectively turned into goblins?

[Lessabos]

But the Snow Elves were the most beautiful, right? The poison mushrooms explained the blindness, but did it explain how they collectively turned into goblins?

 

The same way as orcs in tolkien world. Live underground for many generations , their bodies adopted to new enviroment + one sided brutal war with dwemers

[ALittleBird]

(Which, IMO, is insufficient to commit genocide. I view the 500 Companions as 500 different armies, with each General being a 'Companion')

 

I don't know. If we're to believe Skyrim, 20 people constitute an army, and 50 constitute a city. (Seriously, did anyone else find this annoying and immersion breaking?)

 

But the Snow Elves were the most beautiful, right? The poison mushrooms explained the blindness, but did it explain how they collectively turned into goblins?

 

The battles having so few people on screen is not part of the lore, it's just part of the engine and such. I imagine having hundreds of people in a battle is quite too much for a computer to handle. According to the lore, in The Battle of the Moesring, the last battle between Snow Elves and Men on Solstheim, there were thousands of soldiers, at least hundreds.

Oh, and the Falmer being ugly creatures is just evolution, they adapted to the circumstances of small, rough and wet caves.