Dwemer vs Ayleid

[House of the Wolf]

Probably not. They were separated largely by the Jerall and Velothi mountain ranges, and neither saw any real/good reason to go past/through them.

[MTD3454]

I wonder if Dwemers and Ayleids had any contact or clashes. That would be cool to see!

Hmmmmm maybe thats why the disappeared completely! both of them were in a huge war and all of them ended up going extinct for both races and no evidence on this war was recorded because everything was burned! so no one knows. And didnt the dwemer live underground so therefore they could dig all the way to Cyrodil and clash with the Ayleids

[Br3admax]

That made no since. Since we know exactly what happened to both groups. The Dwemer disappeared at the Battle of Red Mountain, after tampering with the Heart of Lorkhan. The Alyeids battled Alessia and never went extinct. They simply withdrew from the world. Some are believed to secretly live on, and Alyeids lived underground too.

[Pilaf The Defiler]

There should still be people with quite a bit of Ayleid blood in Valenwood, especially the Camorans.

It's not known for sure whether the Dwemer ever interacted with the Ayleids, but the Ayleids are implied by at least one source to have herded human slaves south from Falkreath, and some Dwemer ruins do exist nearby that location, which would have been active cities during the height of Ayleid civilization.

To be honest, I see no motivation for these groups to ever go to war. They were culturally distinct but not enemies in any way. If anything they'd ignore one another most of the time and perhaps engage in some measure of trading. There's no record of the Dwemer lending a helping hand when the Ayleids started losing their war, though. The Dwemer would have still been around when Alessia's slave revolt happened, and for a couple of hundred years at least after White Gold Tower was sacked. There's no historical mention as of yet that includes Dwemer sending any sort of aid or taking in Ayleid refugees. Perhaps unlike the Falmer the Ayleids wisely avoided the Dwarves. It would appear most of the remaining ones made pacts with Alessia or fled into other Elven countries.

[Baloth-Kul]

Totally skipped through all the debate, here.

THEY'RE BOTH REALLY COOL I LOVE going through the ruins of BOTH civilizations. I literally hoard every single artifact I find in there. Every Dwemer spoon and bowl. Every cog and tube. I stole the Ayleid statues back from Ancano. I stockpiled Welkynd and whatchamacallit Stones. All of the books pertaining to both races.

[House of the Wolf]

There should still be people with quite a bit of Ayleid blood in Valenwood, especially the Camorans.

It's not known for sure whether the Dwemer ever interacted with the Ayleids, but the Ayleids are implied by at least one source to have herded human slaves south from Falkreath, and some Dwemer ruins do exist nearby that location, which would have been active cities during the height of Ayleid civilization.

To be honest, I see no motivation for these groups to ever go to war. They were culturally distinct but not enemies in any way. If anything they'd ignore one another most of the time and perhaps engage in some measure of trading. There's no record of the Dwemer lending a helping hand when the Ayleids started losing their war, though. The Dwemer would have still been around when Alessia's slave revolt happened, and for a couple of hundred years at least after White Gold Tower was sacked. There's no historical mention as of yet that includes Dwemer sending any sort of aid or taking in Ayleid refugees. Perhaps unlike the Falmer the Ayleids wisely avoided the Dwarves. It would appear most of the remaining ones made pacts with Alessia or fled into other Elven countries.

The Heartland (present-day Cyrodiil) also lacked most of the resources the Dwemer would have wanted, making any conquest south of the Jeralls too poor an objective for too high a cost. And the Ayleids, likewise, were likely happy enough controlling Tamriel's major trade-routes.

Totally skipped through all the debate, here.

THEY'RE BOTH REALLY COOL I LOVE going through the ruins of BOTH civilizations. I literally hoard every single artifact I find in there. Every Dwemer spoon and bowl. Every cog and tube. I stole the Ayleid statues back from Ancano. I stockpiled Welkynd and whatchamacallit Stones. All of the books pertaining to both races.

I hated going through Ayleid ruins, in TES IV. Most of them became tedious after a while.

[Pilaf The Defiler]

Sheesh..just saw the post of the guy above Brad up there.

My best advice would be to read the articles on the relevant races at UESP, and then to read the sources those pages are edited together from. Those two races certainly never wiped one another out in some war we've never heard of. We know enough about both their histories to say with relative certainty why and when each culture disappeared.

As for the Ayleids, they never technically were fully wiped out. There are still plenty of people on Tamriel with more than a little Ayleid blood in them. The Dwemer's extinction was much more complete, and there was some divine forces at play there. It's not so much they were destroyed in a conventional sense - they created themselves in reverse.

You might say that a race that can control powers like that would easily win in a war, but they actually never fought the Ayleids specifically to my knowledge, and some sources indicate the Ayleid empire had access to ancient Dawn magic that no other race could use. We don't know how powerful these spells were or what they did, so we can't say how they'd affect the Dwemer. The Nord and proto-Imperial armies managed to wipe the Ayleids out with a bit of Divine aid, and those armies didn't use much magic except for Morihaus's Shouting and Pelinal's enchanted artifacts. So who knows?

[House of the Wolf]

I was agreeing with you, Pilaf

And, right--even if they did, at some point, clash, it seems to have resulted in something other than a conclusive victory for either side, as no sources (yet) indicate to the contrary. But that, by itself, is an ambiguous point on my part, given the general ambiguity Bethesda painted the lore of both these races with, in the first place--leaving the door open for any desired changes later on (as we saw with the Falmer).

[SithisIsMyCopilot]

Which do I like more? Look at my sig. :p

[Pilaf The Defiler]

I was agreeing with you, Pilaf

I was talking about that other guy above Brad.

And, right--even if they did, at some point, clash, it seems to have resulted in something other than a conclusive victory for either side, as no sources (yet) indicate to the contrary. But that, by itself, is an ambiguous point on my part, given the general ambiguity Bethesda painted the lore of both these races with, in the first place--leaving the door open for any desired changes later on (as we saw with the Falmer).

Not to mention the sources we do have are entirely from an in-universe perspective and should not ever be treated as word of god sources.

[Br3admax]

You type out these huge responses and links, but you can't add one more letter or number..... So easy, "Br3ad!" or "Bread" I feel like you call me Brad just to annoy me.

But yeah, the Alyeids are miles behind the Dwemer. Or was that ahead? Dragon Breaks, you know.

[Pilaf The Defiler]

You type out these huge responses and links, but you can't add one more letter or number..... So easy, "Br3ad!" or "Bread" I feel like you call me Brad just to annoy me.

I'm sorry you feel that way, Brandon. I promise I don't target you specifically. I'm a defiler. I defile. It's just part of the MO.

But yeah, the Alyeids are miles behind the Dwemer. Or was that ahead? Dragon Breaks, you know.

They could be both in different ways.

The Keyes novels indicate there's some ancient techno-sorcery going on in White Gold which they constructed, and that they had a mastery of Daedra summoning no other race has ever matched. Mention is made there and in new Dragonborn DLC content about their "Dawn Magics". Apparently the Thalmor rediscovered one of these, which is a technique to make the moons disappear and/or reappear, so that gives you an idea of what the Heartlanders could do.

[House of the Wolf]

Any mention on if the Ayleids were able to find a way to decipher any of the Elder Scrolls? Reason I'm curious is that the Dwemer (apparently) were at least partially able to, so it'd be interesting to know/speculate if the Ayleids were able to, likewise.

[Pilaf The Defiler]

I'm sure they must have at least known about them. Ancestor Moths seemed to originate in Cyrodill, and the White Gold Tower the Ayleids built seems to be a traditional holding place for the Scrolls.

Interestingly, the Ayleids called the Tower "The Temple of the Ancestors" and the uppermost tower where the Imperial Library currently rests also held ten unique Ayleid statues called the Ten Ancestors. What they were meant to represent is unknown, although they could have represented Gods of the Ayleids or the Scrolls themselves. It's notable that the Altmer have ten gods - Auri-El, Trinimac, Magnus, Syrabane, Y'ffre, Xarxes, Mara, Stendarr, Lorkhan and Phynaster.

This doesn't fit with the Aldmeri who built the Tower, though, since they predated the ascension of Syrabane to godhood status by a very long time. I also doubt the Ayleids or any Altmer would worship Lorkhan. So we can possibly rule out the Aldmeri pantheon or else assume some Daedra like Meridia and Mehrunes Dagon were considered Ancestors.

Or perhaps they represented ten Ancestor Moths, who were possibly related to Julianos and venerated by the Ayleids. There's a lot we don't know about their ancient culture, but we know that many Imperial beliefs and practices were inherited from them. Akatosh worship, the Battlemage corps and several other known traditions carry over directly from Ayleid civilization. It's not a huge stretch to imagine the Ten Ancestors had some connection to the Moths and the Scrolls themselves, but what that connection is currently eludes me.

[copykakashi]

Which do I like more? Look at my sig. :p

Ha ha yeah Any idea whose face that is? Its there in all their buildings

[Pilaf The Defiler]

Must be an important figure in their culture, since we see the same face over and over. Perhaps a founding member or great warrior of renown. We don't know much about their important figures asides from Dumac the Dwarf-Orc or Kagranac the Tonal Architect. Both those gentlemen were bearded, though. We can assume the beard was a nearly universal cultural mark for a Dwemer man based on the ghosts and concept art from Morrowind, and the fact that Yagrum the Dwarf we actually meet is bearded. The person in the statue doesn't appear to have a beard or mustache, so that's an interesting art design.

[Unionhack]

Dwemer were WAY more advanced than the Ayleids from what I've seen. Just about everything in Blackreach is a testament to that.

[legoless]

Dwemer were WAY more advanced than the Ayleids from what I've seen. Just about everything in Blackreach is a testament to that.

What, finding a giant cave and filling it with steam-powered machinery? The Dwemer presence in Bleackreach isn't that impressive.

[Chaos the N'wah]

What, finding a giant cave and filling it with steam-powered machinery? The Dwemer presence in Bleackreach isn't that impressive.

Aside from the Oculory in Tower Mzark, it's essentially a crossroads for the major cities in a potentially hazardous zone, but the Oculory is a pretty damn advanced piece of engineering