In the lore? Not really. But then, in-game, there's only one Vestige. There's lots and lots of soul-shriven running around but until YOU defeat Molag Bal, the Planemeld is still nigh and the Prophet is still going to bug you to come to the Harborage to help him out.

It doesn't matter anyway because the lore answer to your question is that practically no lore from this era survives the general chaos and tumult. That's why ESO was put during this time period so they could handwave with "oh, no info survived" to answer why in TES:IV Oblivion no one was saying "didn't Molag Bal already try this in the 2nd era?". The only people who'll remember this game are entities with enduring memories like Daedric Princes, who will no doubt have ESO easter eggs galore in the next single player game.

So there is no actual answer, but that doesn't matter because "there is no information that survived" is the pre-existing lore answer to everything in this game. You can do whatever you want because centuries of war and then Tiber Septim wipes the slate utterly clean.

(I guess that makes my alts some form of an alternate universe, since they can't ever be in the same space/time as the other characters. Now I pity the universe where the Vestige is my Silencer of the Dark Brotherhood...)

I dunno what the rest of you are, but I am the only Vestige.

jarydf wrote: »

When playing the game, we can see all the other players going around like us, and we are all supposedly the vestige. Is there a lore explanation to explain the mechanics that we are all the same character in the stories?

There are multiple vestiges around as there is many soul shriven like us, not only you successfully run from Molag Bal prison.

From other side there can be another explanation, previous TES games with multiplayer Shadowkey explain this as Shadow Realm, so for you it your own home realm but for other players that's accompany you its Shadow Realm, an alternative reality of their universe that was born from Shadow of Conflict, if The War of the Bend'r-mahk give birth for such conflict and was powerful enough to be utilized by Azra Nightwielder to summon other players from Shadow Realms I belive such conflict as Three Banners War and Soulburst give much more shadow energy potential thats explain why there is so many Nightblades with shadow magic around and not so many of them in future.

Interesting also thats ESO Sky Shards highly resemble Star Teeths from Shadowkey in they origin and ability improve us with power of Aetherius.

The least favorite lore explanation does a pretty good job on this actually. People starting and ceasing to exist, copies of people, repeating events over and over, are all documented as occurring during dragon breaks. The delve in Bangkorai where a mage induces a "mini dragon break" seems to poke fun at this because all the observed effects are consistent with how MMOs work- NPCs repeating the same lines without realizing, events occurring and advancing without anyone acknowledging them, the boss being aware she's respawning every few minutes after being killed, etc.

Dragon breaks are kind of a cheap cop out for the major events in the single player games, but I kinda think an MMO is one of the few cases where they could be really creative with the idea

Dragon Break magic blah blah blah... I like to think of it as multiple soul shriven fighting to be the one vestige and in the process many do the tasks needed. Meridia would choose the one vestige out of them all

I just RP that all the players, unless stated otherwise by the player, are soul shriven. This is how they can rez and use the shrines to port around just like my character.

casparian wrote: »

dragon is broke af

So, the idea is that Tamriel's history includes things called, "Dragon Breaks." The idea is that, for whatever reason, Akatosh throws up his hands, says, "fine, you know what, you clean it up!" and time becomes completely unglued as the universe starts to come apart at the seams.

Functionally, these are a screen over the player's actions in a single player game. Specifically it allows the player to roll up a character of any race, and play through the same events. On the surface this is fairly simple, except it takes a hard right turn into bat**** crazy about five miles down the road.

So, a dragon break allows you and I to play Skyrim as The Last Dragonborn with different races, and completely different paths through the game, while still saying, "yeah, but this is the state of Tamriel after everything calms down." It does this by saying there are multiple parallel timelines, sometimes branching or fusing back together, that ultimately end at the objective reality that reasserts itself after the credits roll.

Thing is... because of how they're described, things get a little more mental. Because every playthrough of Skyrim, successful or not, canonically takes place. No matter how warped by mods, or sociopathic the player, it's part of the canon. When you flip out and start massacring Whiterun because of that Arrow to the Knee line, then reload an old save you're not going back before you committed those horrific acts, instead you're collapsing a stray timeline, and reopening another.

This is also why a lot of people look at Dragon Breaks dismissively. "Everything can happen, no accountability, reset everything, but there needs to be some kind of lore justification."

So... the insane explanation which is just this side of lore friendly is that every single player character is The Vestige. The player is in a massive Dragon Break, and every single player you meet is a version of your character. The only real difference is that you can see and interact with each other, unlike in previous dragon breaks. You're in your timeline, they're in their's, but everything kinda leaks back and forth a bit.

In this case, the likely culprit is Meridia, intentionally shoving as many duplicate heroes at Molag Bal in a fit of pique and because tormenting the Lord of Domination and Brutality amuses her, as endless echoes of her champion continue to kick him in the teeth repeatedly.

It's just you. If you're a roleplayer, one RP rule is not to RP as the hero. Solo RP, you're the one and only Vestige. Open RP you're just another faction soldier. I solo-RP my Argonian is the ancestor of my Oblivion and Skyrim Argonians.

Iccotak wrote: »

ESO has a story where I would have preferred that it made all of the players important and not just you.
If they had made Molag Bal a big group boss where all the vestiges fought together.

You can do that in the Imperial City in the center of the sewers, if that's your desire.

jarydf wrote: »

ESO would have been fine if the player character in the main story was just an unimportant nobody. Making them the savior of the world seems a bit of an easy cop out.

An easy cop out entirely in keeping with past Elder Scrolls games.
So ESO is not out of line at all with previous Elder Scrolls games in terms of the role of the main character. In terms of scope of gameplay area, ESO is closest to Arena. In terms of impact on the world, ESO is closer to Oblivion and Skyrim, where the main character faces existential threats.

TLDR: If you want a game where the hero is an unimportant nobody who remains an unimportant nobody, the Elder Scrolls series is not that type of game.

VaranisArano wrote: »

jarydf wrote: »

ESO would have been fine if the player character in the main story was just an unimportant nobody. Making them the savior of the world seems a bit of an easy cop out.

So ESO is not out of line at all with previous Elder Scrolls games in terms of the role of the main character. In terms of scope of gameplay area, ESO is closest to Arena. In terms of impact on the world, ESO is closer to Oblivion and Skyrim, where the main character faces existential threats.

Yes but unlike the other Elder Scrolls games, ESO is multiplayer, so it would have been entirely reasonable to avoid the "you are the only one" savior trope and avoid the problem.

Anyway I get that most people don't agree with me. Thanks.

Molag Bal's prison designer really sucked at his job.

Ajaxandriel wrote: »

I interpret that the Soulburst have interfered with many many people's souls throughout Tamriel, affecting their memory and thus affecting their perception of their own story.

Amongst the floods of player-characters, there are indeed many actual soul-shriven. Maybe everyone, if you take the story literally. But in my headcanon it seems more confortable to say that most are in fact regular people who's memory was "imbued" by the sacrificed soulshrivens' own traumatic memory, leading them to believe they are the Vestige.
Like, you know, people believing they where abducted by aliens (replace aliens with Mannimarco's cult and Molag Bal's minions )

Then the Vestige would be the pure concept of all this "one event memory into thousands of different minds" mess. So to say, the Vestige only exists as a concept (like the prophecy it is) and through your own achievements.

I deducted this assumption from the actual game (its public and notorious facts: like everybody being supposed to consider oneself as a Vestige), the processes implied in lore about Xarxes/Y'ffre (witch is meta-lore, lore speaking about lore) and the whole bosmer spinner stuff, plus hints about Illusion Magic (one lorebook on this matter is gold); the living gods rewriting what the(ir) people believe, etc.

I strongly believe that most of lore phenomena are in fact wording and memory-based. After all, what's the opposite of "Oblivion" as a concept? Memory, right?

But I like the theory of @Konstant_Tel_Necris as well.

I also tend to think of some of the other players as being either other Soul Shriven or memories from life before you were sacrificed by Mannimarco.