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madam-whim · 12 days

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A rough timeline of the Snow Elf/Falmer history that we know of

While working on a fanfiction, I tried to figure out a rough order of events and when they happened for what we know about the Snow Elves and Falmer since they are pretty foggy in terms of dates. I mainly tried to figure out 1) when did the Night of Tears (and the start of the Snow Elf/Atmoran conflict) happen, 2) how long did the Snow Elf genocide last, 3) when did the Falmer evolve into the Falmer we know them as, 4) when was the Chantry of Auri-El built, 5) when did Vyrthur create the Tyranny of the Sun prophecy, and when (and how) did Harkon hear about it?

So here's roughly what I put together:

ME = Merethic Era (dates function like BCE), 1E = 1st Era

ME 1000-800 – First human settlements in Tamriel

ME 500s-100s - Atmorans land at Hsaarik Head and settle Saarthal

ME 100s – Night of Tears, war between Nords and Snow elves

ME 100s – Battle of Moesring (death of the Snow Prince)

ME 100s – Dwemer make deal with Snow elves

ME late 100s-0 – Dragon War

Early 1E – Construction of the Chantry of Auri-El

1E 200s – last of Snow Elves thought to be driven away/killed

1E 600s – War of the Crag

1E 700 – Dwemer disappear

1E 800s-??? – Chantry of Auri-El is attacked

1E ???-2300s - Vyrthur creates the Tyranny of the Sun prophecy

1E 2300s-2700 – Harkon discovers the prophecy and Valerica hides Serana away

4E 201 – Events of Dawnguard

Bolded = concrete canon dates directly stated somewhere Normal = dates with canon evidence, but never concretely mentioned Italics = dates I made up based on being between/before and after canon events

Now let's go through that timeline again but with my evidence and reasoning (under the cut for space):

ME 1000-800 – First human settlements in Tamriel

Frontier, Conquest, and Accommodation: A Social History of Cyrodiil cites the first human settlements on Tamriel having been dated to ME 1000-800 (Late Merethic Era) outside of Skyrim, which was colonized later.

PGE3 claims that settlers from Atmora sailed to Tamriel for hundreds of years in the Merethic, but that these included the Nedes as well, and it is implied they came over and settled south and potentially in High Rock first as the interbreeding that would lead to Bretons also begin occurring in the Late Merethic. My conclusion is that the Atmoran ancestors of the Nedes came to Tamriel and settled farther south several hundred years before the Atmoran ancestors of the Nords (according to legend) such as Ysgramor settled in Skyrim.

ME 500s-100s - Atmorans land at Hsaarik Head and settle Saarthal

Before the Ages of Man places the settlement of Saarthal in the Late Merethic Era, but as mentioned above, it was likely after several other Atmoran migrations had occurred earlier.

The UESP page on the Merethic Era puts forward two theories for when the settling of the Atmorans in Skyrim/Saarthal occured. To summarize, Kodlack Whitemane claims the Companions are "nearly 5,000 years old" dating them to at latest ME 550 (it has be 4,450 years since the start of the 1st Era). Alternatively, King Harald is said to be the 13th in the direct line of Ysgramor, and UESP thinks, assuming it is referring to generations, that would put Ysgramor as being alive in the ME 100s.

ME 100s – Night of Tears, war between Nords and Snow elves

The Snow Elves attack and raze Saarthal for reasons that have been lost to time, (supposedly) after having had peace with each other. Ysgramor returns to Atmora with his two sons and returns with the Five Hundred Companions.

This one has to have taken part not too long after the settling of Saarthal; Ysgramor is still alive and will live on for awhile after this, and for the sake of caution I'm putting this at the end of the range established in the previous point because it's one of the last things that we know of happening in the Merethic Era.

ME 100s – Battle of Moesring (death of the Snow Prince)

The Fall of the Snow Prince is the one source for the battle itself.

The Nords view this battle as sort of the final stand of Snow Elves, and took place on Solstheim.

Ysgramor led the Atmorans/Nords in this battle (according to the above), so he was still alive for this to take place, which is why I placed it in the same century as the start of the Snow Elf-Atmoran conflict/genocide.

ME 100s – Dwemer make deal with Snow elves

This journal from a Snow Elf in hiding suggests that the Battle of Moesring and the death of the Snow Prince was a major catalyst in deciding to seek out the Dwemer for aid, so whatever deal or alliance was made likely happened fairly soon after that battle.

ME late 100s-0 – Dragon War

Not necessarily relevant to the Snow Elves, but I was curious if the dragons could've been invovled in the conflict with them (and it's relevant to a scene from that fanfic I mentioned earlier)

Skorm Snow-Strider's Journal implies that the Dragon War had already occurred by 1E 139, and was long enough ago that finding dragon cultists was surprising.

UESP consistently lists the Dragon War as one of the last major events of the Merethic Era. It seems like once the Snow Elf population was significantly eliminated/driven out and the Atmorans/Nords began to significantly settle across the land that the Dragon Cult began to take off and become more tyrannical, inciting the Dragon War.

Personal headcanon: The method of Merethic dating originated with King Harald's Nordic scholars, but the event considered to mark the start of the 1st Era is the Founding of the Camoran Dynasty. I like to think that the original 1st Era Nordic event that marked the beginning of the 1st Era was the end of the Dragon War, but when this method of dating was adopted by Tamriel at large the founding of the Camoran Dynasty was adopted as the official start of the 1st Era.

Early 1E – Construction of the Chantry of Auri-El

Gelebor directly states it was built near the beginning of the 1st Era. This is sort of odd because it implies that there was enough of a presence and culture of the Snow Elves in the early 1st Era to put in the resources to build it. Additionally, Gelebor says, "The Chantry is quite isolated, so it took some time for word of the dwarves' offer to reach us here," an offer that almsot certainly happened before the 1st Era. (if I were to rewrite this timeline I would put it much earlier, pre-Atmoran involvement, but for the sake of consistency we will stick with canon for this post)

1E 200s – last of Snow Elves thought to be driven away/killed

In 1E 139, Skorm Snow-Strider's Journal details Lord Harald attempting to root out left over Snow Elves and Snow Elf "stronghold[s]". They are met with significant resistance and reports of attacks on local Nord settlements, however, the presence of Snow Elves is not treated as surprising, implying that this effort to wipe them out has been ongoing since the Merethic Era.

Meanwhile, PGE1 claims that the Snow Elves were considered "driven out" by reign of King Harald. He reigned form 1E 143 to 1E 221.

Given they were still present in 1E 139, but considered wiped out by at latest 1E 221, I concluded that this must've occurred over Harald's reign.

1E 600s – War of the Crag

The Falmer: A Study is the only evidence of this occurring, but it claims that at some point the Falmer under the control of the Dwemer, having already become the Betrayed, started a rebellion, eventually leaving the control of the Dwemer and settling into the deeper reaches of Blackreach. There, they continued in a conflict with the Dwemer called the War of the Crag.

According to the author of this paper, this conflict lasted for several decades and ended when the Dwemer disappeared, leaving the Falmer to freely spread throughout the underground of Skyrim. For this reason, it must've taken place in the 1E 600s.

1E 700 – Dwemer disappear

Kagrenac bonks the Heart of Lorkhan at the end of the War of the First Council. Rest in pieces, Dwemer. The entirety of the Falmer now have the freedom to spread and create their own communities.

1E 800s-2000s – Chantry of Auri-El is attacked

At some point, the modern Falmer invaded the Chantry of Auri-El and presumably killed everyone there except Vyrthur and Gelebor. Given that the Falmer had access to the Forgotten Vale to do so, and were organized and dangerous enough to do that sort of damage, this probably happened a significant amount of time after the disappearance of the Dwemer.

There are no other indications of a date when this happened, so basically all we have to go off of is "after the Dwemer disappeared" and "before Vyrthur created the Tyranny of the Sun prophecy", which itself doesn't have a date.

1E ???-2300s - Vyrthur creates the Tyranny of the Sun prophecy

So Vyrthur creates a prophecy for the sake of getting a Daughter of Coldharbour to him so he can use her blood to block out the sun to get revenge on Auri-El. How did he do that? How did it get out of the Forgotten Vale for Harkon to find out about? How did it end up on Elder Scrolls? Doesn't matter for the purpose of this timeline. We can presume it was after the Chantry of Auri-El was attacked (although we don't even know that for sure, but it's what I'm going with), but obviously before Harkon learned about it.

1E 2300s-2700 – Harkon discovers the prophecy and Valerica hides Serana away

This might not be relevant to the Snow Elves or Falmer as a whole, but it's relevant to Vyrthur's prophecy (in helping me work backwards to figure out when the attack on the Chantry happened) and the Dawguard quest, and many people have brought up before the context of Serana's "Cyrodiil is the seat of an empire?" comment so I thought I'd look into it out of curiosity.

Serana's empire comment is the only indication we have (that I'm aware of) of when Serana was sealed away (and therefore when Harkon learned of the prophecy), so let's look at Cyrodiil's empires:

The Ayleid empire ruled from sometime in the Merethic Era to the Alessian Slave Rebellion and the beginning of the Alessian empire in 1E 243. Obviously it was after this since there was no break between these empires.

In 1E 2321 the War of Righteousness would break out, leading to the dissolution of the Alessian Empire at its conclusion in 1E 2331.

The Second Empire started with the Reman Dynasty in 1E 2703 after the battle of Pale Pass. The 1st Era would end with the end of the Reman Dynasty and the beginning of the Akaviri Potentate, which would last until 2E 430. There wouldn't be another empire until Tiber Septim at the start of the 3rd Era. So there was a break in empires from 1E 2321 to 1E 2703 and from 2E 430 to 2E 854.

Harkon's UESP page claims he ruled over the Volkihar Clan after Serana's disappearance "for millennia" with a citation to the Skyrim Prima Official Guide, which I don't have, so I'll take the wiki's word on it. Knowing that, and acknowledging that by the time of Skyrim it has only been 634 years since the beginning of the Septim Empire, I assume that the mostly likely break in Cyrodiil empires for Serana to have been born and hidden away during was between the Alessian and Second Empires.

Did this matter? Only to help figure out a very minor detail in Gelebor and Vyrthur's timelines. Did I have fun trying to figure it out? yes!

4E 201 – Events of Dawnguard

I believe that's it! If anyone knows of anything I missed (or messed up) feel free to add or speculate on that as well!

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