The Dragon Break Reexamined, by Fal Droon
The late 3rd era was a period of remarkable religious ferment and creativity. The upheavals of the reign of Uriel VII were only the outward signs of the historical forces that would eventually lead to the fall of the Septim Dynasty. The so called "Dragon Break" was first proposed at this time, by a wide variety of cults and fringe sects across the Empire, connected only by a common obsession with the events surrounding Tiber Septim's rise to power - the "founding myth," if you will, of the Septim Dynasty.
The basis of the Dragon Break doctrine is now known to be a rather prosaic error in the timeline printed in the otherwise authoritative "Encyclopedia Tamrielica," first published in 3E 12, during the early years of Tiber Septim's reign. At that time, the archives of Alinor were still inaccessible to human scholars, and the extant records from the Alessian period were extremely fragmentary. The Alessians had systematically burned all the libraries they could find, and their own records were largely destroyed during the War of Righteousness.
The author of the Encyclopedia Tamrielica was apparently unfamiliar with the Alessian "year," which their priesthood used to record all dates. We now know this refers to the length of the long vision-trances undertaken by the High Priestess, which might last anywhere from a few weeks to several months. Based on analysis of the surviving trance scrolls, as well as murals and friezes from Alessian temples, I estimate that the Alessian Order actually lasted only about 150 years, rather than the famous "one thousand and eight years" given by the Encyclopedia Tamrielica. The "mystery" of the millennial-plus rule of the Alessians was accepted but unexplained until the spread of the Lorkhan cults in the late 3rd era, when the doctrine of the Dragon Break took hold. Because this dating (and explanation) was so widely held at the time, and then repeated by historians down through today, it has come to have the force of tradition. Recall, however, that the 3rd era historians were already separated from the Alessians by a gulf of more than 2,000 years. And history was still in its infancy, relying on the few archives from those early days.
Today, modern archaeology and paleonumerology have confirmed what my own research in Alessian dating first suggested: that the Dragon Break was invented in the late 3rd era, based on a scholarly error, fueled by obsession with eschatology and Numidiumism, and perpetuated by scholarly inertia.
"Do not ask us where we were when the Dragon Broke, for, of all the world, only we truly know, and we might just show you how to break it again."
"Every culture on Tamriel remembers the Dragon Break in some fashion; to most it is a spiritual anguish that they cannot account for."
"As for myself, I was here and there and here again, like the rest of the mortals during the Dragon Break. How do you think I learned my mystery? The Marukhati Selectives showed us all the glories of the Dawn so that we might learn, simply: as above, so below."
A Dunmeri woman paused in her prayer and stood still, listening, her heartbeat quick and light in her ears. Beyond the sighing wind and the distant howling of wolves, she heard nothing. There was no difference in the bewildering brilliance of the sky above, that she could notice, in any case; there had to be millions of stars, there was no way she could ever see them all.
The priestess of Azura lowered her hands slowly and turned to look out over the face of Skyrim, a wild land full of mysteries Azura would never reveal to her. The constellations had not changed. The mountains ranged silent around her, indifferent to the minor changes that wind and weather constantly bore upon them. The statue of Azura rose before her, magnificent as ever, as distant and cold as the stars above. The land itself glittered with snow and ice and the distant grey-gold of the Whiterun plains. Nothing had changed.
And yet, something had changed. Something fundamental. Her very soul cried out with it: something is not right. Wordless, pleading, she lifted her hands to the statue of Azura. Speak to me!
"One will come," the Goddess of Dusk and Dawn whispered to her. "The one Akatosh blessed."
"The one..." Not much surprised her anymore, but this did. The Aedra very rarely interfered in the mortal realm. "There is one walking Mundus that Akatosh himself blessed?"
"Twice over," Azura murmured. "As above, so below."
Prologue: The Dragon Break, Reexamined
Chapter One: Haemar's Shame
Chapter Two: Before the Storm
Chapter Three: