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Human Origins: Nords vs Nedes

  • Member
    July 2, 2014

    Disclaimer: This is an article of our former member, renown Loremaster Vix, acknowledged by Bethesda themselves. It ended up being deleted and I'm merely reposting it.

     

    The Elder Scrolls universe has quite a number of things in common with our own, one of them just happens to be the debate over the origin of humans. This might seem like a small point but it's become quite important when considering the cultural inheritance of various groups and claims for political purposes.

    There is some commonality in that humans generally recognize that they are the descendents of the Ehlnofey, a part of the et'Ada spirits that acted as progenitors to the other races. Many Ehlnofey spirits died to become the 'earth bones' or laws of nature, sometimes the Aedra are also included as Ehlnofey, and last but not least were the ancestors. According to the Annotated Anuad these final group of Ehlnofey consist of a group called the 'Wanderers' and split into several groups: the Aldmer, the Redguard, the Tsaesci, and the Atmorans. Unfortunately, this version leaves out something important, a group often associated as one of the first human races, the Nedic people commonly called Nedes.

    But who really were the Nedes? There is three distinct possibilities for the origin of humans on Tamriel that contributed to being the first and principle cultures established and the ones that have survived.

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    Nedes are Nords:

    This line of thought is put forward by some of the earlier 3rd era materials. It suggests that the term Nedes is entirely interchangeable with Nords. It asserts that Nords were the first humans on Tamriel and from them all humans are related with divergences of Imperials and Bretons from interbreeding with elves.

    All the Eras of Men suggests this, believing that after the Nords landed, those who went south were enslaved by the Ayleids and used practically as cattle. They became the Cyrodiils. Others willfully left for the west coasts, they were captured by the Direnni Altmer of High Rock and interbred with them to produce the Bretons. Before the Ages of Menincludes a similar line of thought; it states that the Nedic title came from the first wave of Atmorans before the return of Ysgramor. These Nords were pre-literate and as such were simply called Nedes while Nord arose later and supplanted the title. Nevertheless it primarily asserts that the Atmorans and the Nedes are the same people.

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    Nords are Nedes:

    The second theory ties in somewhat with the later evidence from Before the Ages of Men but goes a step further. It suggests that the Nords are part of a larger Nede race which simply meant humans that came before Ysgramor. The theory itself states that the Nords were the more aggressive tribe from a common collective of Atmorans who arrived. While Atmorans had arrived for hundreds of years, peacefully co-existing and living with their elven neighbors, the Nords were the remnants of a mercenary group that simply wouldn't accept those conditions and wanted to be superior. Where other groups existed in harmony or at least peace, the Nords expanded militarily and swallowed up the others. As such the term Nede can be used as a catch all for 'humans' in much the same way Aldmer can be used to say 'all elves'.

    Frontier, Conquest, and Accommodation: A Social History of Cyrodiil is the first and perhaps most detailed account of this theory. For this source it states quite clearly that the term Nede was meant to mean any non-indigenous human though this seems separate from Redguards. The Nedes were still Atmorans but the Nords were distinctly different than the proto-Imperials and proto-Breton peoples and cultures. The Nedes were all Atmorans who fled from the ongoing civil war over a period of many hundreds of years and some landed in Hammerfell, in High Rock, and from High Rock many moved to Cyrodiil. Most of these initial Atmorans were young, landless, malcontents, or rebels who otherwise had little chance or choice in Atmorans formal society where as the Nords were an aggressive Atmoran band who's actions damned the other Nedes in the eyes of the Elves. This is supported with evidence from the Pocket Guide to the Empire 3rd edition which says outright all Nedes are from Atmora but the Nords are just the last small settlement group. They were hunters who knew nothing about agriculture, and so they turned to hunting and banditry.

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    Nedes of the Many...

    There is one final line of thought, that Nords and Nedes are separate distinct cultures. This one seems like it has less support but the actual evidence from material is quite compelling. It suggests that the Nedes are not Atmorans, rather they are a collective of Tamrielic indigenous humans who were generally wiped out by the Nords. As such, the Bretons may have had no relation to the Nords, and the proto-Cyordiils had no connection to the Nords just like the Redguard have no relation to any other human groups. These humans didn't settle Skyrim first, rather, they existed in places such as Hammerfell and Cyrodiil first and spread out.

    The Songs of Pelinal suggests that the Nedes are different from the Proto-Imperials who in their mind were already connected in some bloodlines thanks to Ayleid enslavement far to the Nord. This is also the view of one of the most credible sources, the god Morihaus who wrote the Adabal-a stating that the Nedes were separate from the 'Men of (fal)kreath' and goes on to list a great number of tribes in the region including the Kothringi which have a great deal of material suggesting they are indigenous to Tamriel and completely unconnected. Morihaus connects the Nedes to separate unique group and mentions other tribes (such as al-Gemha, men of Ge, Keptu, Al harad, men of Ket). Most aren't mentioned again, except the men of Keptu which has a tie in as a name of an adoptive Nede in the Songs of Pelinal. Another text is the Opusculus Lamae Bal ta Mezzamortie, the vampire origin story. This source believes that the Nedes are a group of humans made soon after Tamriel, presumably after the Hist and Khajiit, but likely before the Atmorans arrived. Molag Bal had raped a Nedic virgin and this created the first vampire in the time when “Tamriel was young”.

    Of course other sources are less clear than this. The first Pocket Guide to the Empire mentions the Cyro-Nords conquering Nedic cities and later that the Redguards destroyed or ran off the native Nedes when they invaded.

    So, we have distinct and very different legends. Why is this important? Ownership. What land belongs to who and why. Natural 'inherited' land is a commonly cited reason for ownership and destiny of a geological region where as right of Conquest is rarely suggested as the aggression defeats their own earlier assumptions of inheritance. We've seen this from the Nords and Imperials in different periods of time.

    So what do you think?

  • Member
    July 2, 2014
    While Im endlessly grateful these articles were recovered, as mentioned before, we are missing a wealth of the communities commentary- and that is another blow thats just landed home. :(
  • September 30, 2014

    So, in other words, the best evidence points to the Nedes being partly the Atmorans who settled and mixed with the other indigenous tribes in Tamriel before the second incursion of Ysgramor and his ilk. 

  • Member
    October 19, 2014

    The current trend (albeit supplemented by oog sources) is that when the Ehlnofey split into two - the Old Ehlnofey (Mer) and Wandering Ehlnofey (Men) - some of the latter went north to Atmora, some west to Yokuda, some went south to Black Marsh and the rest stayed in what is now Cyrodiil and High Rock.

    This version of events conflicts with previously established lore in-game and the propaganda of the Imperial Geographic Society but is gathering momentum in ESO. It ties up a few loose ends, such as what the Youkudan's are and how the Direnni were able to enslave the able warrior culture from Atmora.

    So it seems no longer is Atmora the birthplace of man, nor is "the history of the Nords the history of humanity in Tamriel". Rather, Nedes are the common ancestor all races of men share.

    I also like to think this is the reason why the Birthsigns and constellations are still very important to every culture of man. ESO has it that the Nedes had a religion centered on worshipping these Celestials.

  • Tom
    Member
    October 19, 2014

    So Yokudans are no longer men from a previous Kalpa who "walked at strange angles" to escape the World Eater and enter again into the current cycle?

  • Member
    October 19, 2014

    I think they still can be all that too. The time of the Ehlnofey is that time period, the destruction of the12  worlds of creation being the allegory of Stakal the Worldskin story.

    Also, wtf is wrong with that picture above? Why is some of it missing? 

  • Tom
    Member
    October 19, 2014

    Try fewer pixels?