Tamriel Data:Teleportation Praxis, Vol. I

Book Information Teleportation Praxis, Vol. I
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Teleportation Praxis, Vol. I

by Voganna Plotinus

Teleportation: Premise & Praxis

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Self-catalyzed, instantaneous teleportation was long believed to be an unattainable dream, a fancy of folktales -- god-heroes riding the winds of Kyne, armies transported to distant lands, or unlucky folk vanishing into Oblivion by the will of evil spirits.

Some believe these legends indicate that our earliest ancestors had access to teleportation magic. This is far from the truth. While ancient artifacts capable of teleportation have been discovered, such artifice (when not simply a counterfeit) was often the work of solitary, brilliant souls, who rarely passed on their knowledge to others. Such was the case for most arcane masters who predated the open scholarship philosophy of Galerion.

DOORS OF OBLIVION

The earliest known method of teleportation was to plot a course through Oblivion. Odd gateways link the planes of Oblivion, and those with knowledge of such connections could use them to quickly travel from one mundane location to another.

The drawbacks of this technique are self-evident: doors to Oblivion are rare, behave erratically, are difficult to open, and anyone traversing them is at the mercy of the Daedra.

Knowledge of these passages remains incredibly rare. Given that both the doors and the planes they are meant to connect are ever-changing, most of the ancient maps that have come to us from antiquity are completely outdated. Besides, most such maps are functionally useless due to their bizarre designs (murderous puzzle-boxes, mind-breaking glyphs, and elaborate verse are depressingly common). The only reliable method of traversing Oblivion, it is said, is to use a Voidguide, an exceptionally rare artifact that can connect its user to that which they seek - though safe passage to one's destination is not guaranteed.

Exceptional mages of ages past boasted of the ability to open gates through their own will, coming and going to the mortal world as they pleased. Some even carved out pocket worlds in the Void, which could connect to many places at will. Of these liminal nexuses, only the heartfold of Gwylim remains in use. Others have gone dark long ago, their ties to the world severed.

Movement through the Daedric realms is no longer practical in modern times, as a consequence of the barrier pacts of the First Era, which made such travel much more costly and difficult while not diminishing its associated perils.

ARCANE ENGINES

The first verified successes in teleportation were accomplished through elaborate engines, such as the occlusion tunnels of Yatillai Direnni. These tunnels required weeks of arcane calculations as well as a veritable fortune in aetherial matter -- so much, in fact, that the famous Ryan Direnni himself derided it as the slowest and most expensive method of travel imaginable.

Another example of such engines are the obscure propylotics of ancient Morrowind. The most reliable account of their functioning is that of Cir Cimius, envoy under Emperor Gorieus. Cimius theorized that the Chimer spatially entangled two monoliths so that the Aurbis regarded them as one and the same. In practice, the system could only transport one person from a set place to another, limiting its potential to that of a messenger system. As the strategic locations thus connected became irrelevant ages ago, this system is assumed to be no longer functional.

Other early Elven cultures rarely developed teleportation systems. Most of the Summerset colonists inherited the repressive worldview of the Aldmer, in which free movement of the people was undesirable, and the other colonies were considered morally or religiously suspect.

Excepting the Weir Gate network, whose functioning is regarded as a state secret, such cumbersome teleportation engines are no longer in use, replaced as they are by the ease and convenience of the Celaudine praxis which will be described in the last volume in this series.