Lady Serah - Complete Lore and Narrative. [Vigilant, Unslaad]
*Note*
Beware! What lies ahead is long, grammatically incorrect and full of SPOILERS.
This is a wild interpretation of VINC’s Vigilant, Unslaad, and Glenmoril that I incorporated into Serah’s lore. So this will sound like nonsensical ramble if you don’t have or playthrough these mods. Probably still sound like nonsense even if you have those mods 🤣
Her dialogues were built on MY interpretation of VINC mods, not the canon explanation by Aelarr.
I divided a Kalpa cycle chronologically into 4 "seasons", to help narrate the story. Each cycle starts in Spring and ends with Winter. At the end of each Kalpa, time is supposed to reset to a New Dawn, which I will represent as Spring.
That being said, I think it's much easier to tell this narrative starting with Fall, of year 4E 201. Where the events of Skyrim take place.
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Fall (Past): In order to learn Dragonrend and defeat Alduin, the Elder Scroll was used at the throat of the world, resulting in a Dragon Break and a Time Wound. Creating two distinctive, yet equally true timeline.
- Timeline A (Convergent Loop): *Don’t have the mods installed* Pretty much anything and everything the Dragonborn did or could have done. Destroy the Dark Brotherhood, marry Ysolda, join the vampires, etc. However you played your game. The only exception is that “Serah'' doesn't exist in this timeline. All branching alternatives will ultimately converge into a single “Ends Time” with Unslaad.
- Timeline B (Divergent Loop) *Have mods installed*: The difference between Serah and the normal Serana is that, after absorbing your "essence" for 6 years, she became partially aware of the True state of the world. That you aren’t just the Dragonborn, but a being that can manipulate the world as he sees fit through modding, ahem… CHIM. Which is why she has dialogue like “Something is wrong with this world, I just can’t figure out what exactly”. The implication is that, even though she can't tell what changed, she is aware that the world is being modified around the player. This timeline would still lead you to Unslaad, but the cycle was interrupted. We’ll dive more into it in the Winter section.
Winter (Future): I won’t spoil the story of Unslaad, mostly because I don’t fully understand it myself. I only know the part that I incorporated in my own narrative.
The Time Wound that appears outside of High Hrothgar was not discovered until many years after the defeat of Alduin. The destination was the future, in the land of Unslaad. This isolated place is the home of a half dragon hybrid girl named Ulliss. Not going into great details, but your quest leads you even further in the future. Unslaad gets invaded and Ulliss is dying. To preserve what was left of her soul, you fused a part of your soul with hers. Resulted in a half dragon hybrid child name Lizz.
After bringing Lizz back to her mother Ulliss, you travel north-east to a place called Dragon’s Peak. This place exists at the very end of the Kalpa cycle, the “Ends Time”. It is the convergent point of all the remaining Time left within the Dream. A new Godhead must slumber for a new Spring to begin. This role was supposed to be Ulliss. But because you traveled to Unslaad and conceived Lizz. She will take Ulliss place as the new Godhead. All that’s needed was a trigger to jump start the next cycle, and that is you, the Last Dragonborn. One that possessed both the Blood and Soul of a dragon. When you use your shout, two dragons will emerge from the mountain in the far distance, indicating a successful link to next Spring. Lizz becomes the Godhead, dreaming of the new world into existence, similar to The Painted World of Ariandel from DS3. From Serah’s “Dream of Winter” dialogue. She stated that a Great Tree will sprout where Liz lay rested. The tree will eventually be known as the Eldergleam, oldest living being in Tamriel. Even though Lizz is the host of the dream, she can’t interact with the world unless she lucid dream. In order to do so, she must lower a part of her consciousness and attach to a being that exists within the Dream. The being that she chose was Kyne, “Kiss at the End”.
Canonically, this is where everything in the current world is supposed to literally just End. Think it as you starting a “New Game”, erasing your current save to play the next one.
Up to this point, both timelines are basically the same. You can bring Serah to Unslaad, but she won’t have any special dialogues there. There are only Implication dialogues that you both went there together already, and that she likes Lizz. If you ask her “What was the last thing you remember” dialogue, she will recall what happened in Timeline B. When you shouted at the sky, ushering in the collapse of the current world. Serah unconsciously ‘dreamt’ both of your escape by sending you and herself back in the past. So instead of moving forward to the next Kalpa, she rewinds the clock back 6 years.
Fall (Present): >[This is the scenario you play when you start a New Game with Serah]< You wake up again on that carriage ride to Helgen for an execution. Even though everything “reset”, you (your character) memory is fully intact. Meet up with Serah at the Temple of Kynareth and go about your adventure in Skyrim as usual. Eventually, you will starts Vigilant quest. Won’t go into great details, but the chains of events that follow will lead you to Coldharbour. The memories of “Spring” and “Summer” are viewed in Act 4.
Before we dive into Coldharbour, there is one important key point that I must mention. During Act 2 in Old Windhelm’s, there was the throne room where the bones of the Blood Matron lay rested; a knife plunged in her chest. This indicates that the original Lamae Bal has ALREADY been killed and that the Lamae Bal you fight is highly an imitation. This key point will be used later, so I will label it as [Key 1].
*WIP* Fall was supposed to encompass the events of Glenmoril also, but I want to wait until it finishes before adding more lines to Serah. At the moment, she only has the “Dream of Fall” dialogue which covers the beginning of Glenmoril and the Anatomancer (only occurs after Vigilant) for his upcoming role in it.
Spring (Past): I will have to ask you to suspend your disbelief for a second, and accept what I say as canon. During the Merethic Era, there was a priestess named Lamae Beolfag and an ayleid Bard, whose name has long been forgotten. Let's label him “Bard-O” for Bard - Original. In “Romeo and Juliet” fashion, they can’t be together due to the never ending conflict between Mer and the Nedes. The Bard is tolerated, but always discriminated against by Lamae's people. And he himself was an outcast by his own for associating with the Nedes. Nonetheless, everyday under the Eldergleam, he would sing to her. This caught the attention of her father, who was displeased by the notion that his daughter was mingling with an elve. He had his people poison the Bard and left him for dead. After months of searching, Lamae turned to prayer when she couldn’t find the Bard. Everyday, she would plead under the Eldergleam to Kyne, wishing to see him one last time. Little that she knew, he was laying underneath her feet.
At this moment in time, Lizz is basically Kyne. To be more precise, Lizz's lowered consciousness was heavily influencing Kyne. Lizz still has her full memory from the previous cycle. Residing in the Eldergleam, Lizz knows the Bard was the Dragonborn and Lamae was Serah/Serana. After the events of Unslaad, she viewed the two as parental figures and loved them so. Grief by the Bard’s death and Lamae’s longing, Lizz sacrificed her consciousness in order to bring the Bard back to life. In doing so, Lizz’s consciousness disappeared from the Eldergleam. She isn’t dead, she is still the sleeping Godhead. But now, she won’t be able to see or interact with worldly events anymore. From that moment, Kyne of the Merethic Era became Kyne/Kynareth that we know today. The 1st hand account of what happened after Lamae’s wish was granted is in Serah’s Diary (in her inventory) or 2nd hand telling in Opusculus Lamae Bal.
"Tamriel was still young, and filled with danger and wondrous magick when Bal walked in the aspect of a man and took a virgin, Lamae Beolfag, from the Nedic Peoples. Savage and loveless, Bal profaned her body, and her screams became the Shrieking Winds, which still haunt certain winding fjords of Skyrim. Shedding a lone droplet of blood on her brow, Bal left Nirn, having sown his wrath."
It is the event that conspired after that is unknown to history, and only ever remembered by 3 beings.
1. After the “deed” was done, the resurrected Bard converse with Sheogorath, he tells the mad god that he must push forward Still... He will stop at nothing in order to achieve godhood. Only by ascending, he can rewrite history and undo his crime. The Bard shed every ounce of his humanity and went on to Mantle Molag Bal. Let’s label this “Bard-B” as in Bard - Bad
2. The discarded humanity of Bard-O banded together in a fruitless attempt to save Lamae. It uses all its strengths to drag her body to the nearest tribe, Sheogorath appears to the dying flesh and presents the same question he did to Molag Bal. The Bard tells the mad god that he had Enough… and wishes for death. Let's label this as “Bard-G” for Bard - Good.
Lamae, despite being a worshiper, couldn’t be saved by Arkay. “Molag Bal shed a droplet of blood on her brow and left her to die… Lamae was discovered by a tribe of nomads, who took care of her and attempted to heal her wounds. Despite their best efforts, however, she appeared to have died within a fortnight. The tribe then prepared to set her body aflame in a funeral pyre, but as it was still burning she rose up and emerged as the first pure-blood vampire. Enraged, she slaughtered the nomads by ripping out the throats of the tribe's women, eating the eyes of the children, and raping the men in a crazed act of violence…” - Opusculus Lamae Bal.
Summer (Past): In order to Mantle Molag Bal, he must walk the same way Molag Bal does, until Molag Bal walks like him. So the span of “Summer” is basically all the messed up things Bard-B did, from when he starts mimicking, to eventually becoming Molag Bal. Every memory encountered in Act 4 except Bitter Memory (Spring) and True End were of his victims. The ones he deceived, tortured, and abused in the same way Molag Bal would have. Some of the events are…
Melus Petilius, Mad King Dro’Zel, Tricking Marukh, deceiving the Alessian Order to fuel a false Amulet of King, Imprisonment of the real Emperor Belharza, etc. (List goes on, I just don’t remember all of them).
Most of the events above are more or less based on the Elder Scrolls lore. There are some that VINC made up. The made up ones aren’t related to Serah’s lore, so I won’t go into them. The only one that stands out is the memory of Martha. This memory felt random until I learned that it’s connected to an Oblivion mod called Bravil-Underground by VINC himself. Didn’t play it myself, but in it, you (the Hero of Kvatch in Oblivion) could do crazy f**k up things. At the very end, it “supposedly” was all a bad Dream, illustrated by Molag Bal.
We know that at the end of the Shivering Isles DLC, HoK (Hero of Kvatch) becomes Sheogorath. But in the Elder Scroll, you either transcend yourself and become a god (Talos, Tribunal, etc), or you mimic a pre-existing god until you both become one. You can’t just flip a switch and become the Mad God. The madness must have been accumulating in the HoK mind before he even set foot in the Shivering Isles. In my opinion, that’s the reason why the Bravil-Underground canon in Vigilant. It’s the mess up things that the HoK did in there that made him crazy. Just as Sheogorath “nudges” the resurrected Bard to become Molag Bal (Spring). Molag Bal does the same thing to the HoK, pushing him down the path of madness to Mantle Sheogorath. A symbiotic relationship, mutually assured existence. OR they’re just f**king with each other. I mean, one is crazy and the other is an asshole, so it's kinda hard to tell. Regardless, there is a strong connection between these two.
Fall (Present):
All of Vigilant (whole mod) events take place in the present, only memories occurred in the past. Before we even enter Act 4, Coldharbour was already being invaded by the Greymarch. Molag is “recruiting” more soldiers by corrupting Vigilants to fight his war. Unknowingly, he accidentally sent you, the Dragonborn (Bard-G reincarnated) and Serah to Coldharbour. The Dragonborn (Bard-G) and Molag were once a single soul, Bard-O. Because of that, if both are present in the same plane (Coldharbour), it becomes a “tug of war” for control. When one gains power, the other loses it. That’s how the Karma system works in Vigilant. If you do evil things, you will weaken yourself while giving Molag enough strength to eventually invades Aetherius. If you freed the souls in Coldharbour (by choosing good options), you will become more powerful, while Molag weakens to a point of losing to you in a fight. By the end, I do believe that the Bard-B’s Molag Bal died. Of course the aspect of Molag Bal isn’t dead. Some other sucker will Mantle him, and he will be indistinguishable from previous Molag Bal. But the Bard reaching Aetherius, and the husk of Molag Bal broken means that Bard-O sins have been absolved. When you’re back in Tamriel, you (the Dragonborn) are no longer connected with Molag or the Bard. You are your own soul and person now, same for Serah.
The reason why I added Vigilant as a hard requirement for the mod is because True Ending is essential to Serah’s narrative. It is the binding force that brought you and Serah together in 4E 201. True End is a MEMORY, meaning it has already happened [Key 1]. You (the Dragonborn) is just a spectator in this memory. The one that was present during the original scene is actually Bard-G. After his death in "Spring", probably many decade later, he is successful in freeing Lamae’s soul, undoing the crime of Bard-B (Molag Bal).
This conversation only makes sense from the perspective of Bard-G.
Molag Bal - “I don’t understand. If YOU wanted, she could have lived again… Why… Why did you refuse?”
You - “You will never understand”
Molag Bal - “Wait… You still haven’t told me your name”
- "My name is [Your player name]. SHE gave it to me”.
- "I am Stendarr. Stendarr of Haafingar."
- "I abandoned my name".
Having Lamae live again or not wasn’t the choice of the Dragonborn, but Bard-O. He chose between two equally true and distinct paths when he answered Sheogorath with “Still…” and “Enough…”. The first response became the being that’s you’re talking to, Molag Bal. The second became Bard-G, the character you are viewing through in this memory. “You will never understand” is a statement that only Bard-G can make. Because he is the humanity that Molag discarded, he knows that Molag is missing that piece to understand what “Love” is. The 3 responses given by the player wouldn’t make sense if it’s the Dragonborn. You might be tempted to say (a) because it has your character name, but the second part, “She gave it to me” doesn't add up. Unless it was referring to when Lamae gave the Bard that name when she met him. Coincidentally (or not), that same name would be used whenever the Bard soul returns to the world. Whether it’s Bard-G that you’re viewing in True End, or the Dragonborn later in 4E 201. (b) Doesn’t apply to the Dragonborn either because the Vigilant you joined is based in The Pale. There isn’t a “Stendarr of Haafingar '' in the current era. This might be referring to the faction Bard-G was in during his time. There is no logical reason why the last respondent applied to the Dragonborn. Why would you abandon your name…? But it makes absolute sense if you’re Bard-G. Having to complete his mission, Bard-G’s soul would have found peace and let go of everything that came before. “All the sins will be forgiven and all the blood washed away. Everything will be buried by the dust of history and become part of the songs” - Bard-G
Unfortunately, history tends to repeat itself. Nevertheless, this event must have already occurred, for Lamae’s soul to eventually become Serana. And as we all know from Dawnguard, Molag Bal violated her, turning her into a Daughter of Coldharbour (again). This triggers the return of Bard-G, who is now the player character, the Dragonborn of the 4th era, in order to free her (again). If the event of True End didn’t occur already, there wouldn’t be a Serana for you to meet in Dawnguard, resulting in Serah not existing.
In the Elder Scroll, the concept of CHIM is often associated with “Love”. Molag’s Love was obsessive, forcing Lamae to be with him, even in death. It’s what Lamae was referring to in True End when she said “It’s such a sad and cruel story. Shouldn’t the ending be inspiring and full of happiness?”. Bard-G responded, “I will think about the rest until the next time we meet”. Lamae ends the conversation by asking you “Then think of something beautiful. Promise?”, and a “See you again” as she walked away.
Serana and the Dragonborn are the reincarnation of Lamae and Bard-G. Meeting her again in the DLC is the “Promised Ending” written by Bard-G. It's the 6 years they spent together in Timeline B, but it wasn’t the end.
Serah’s final narrative is one of Ascension. She started to unravel the True state of the world, by understanding the paradoxical concept of Love. In her post-vigilant dialogue “In order to Ascend. One must embrace "Love", yet comprehend its pointlessness”. Again, CHIM is achieved through the association with Love. Before Vigilant, she had a sense of it. But once you set foot in Coldharbour, Serah begin to learn its full meaning through Molag’s memories. One of the most important lines is “My mind... I feel as if it's being pulled into a maelstrom of memories…”. Coldharbour is a whirlpool of memories of all the tortured souls within it, INCLUDING Molag Bal’s. Through Bal’s memory, Serah had glimpsed Secret Syllable of Royalty. In another post-Vigilant line, she will flat out say “I had glimpses of the Secret Syllable before. Now fully I understand what it means to be Royalty”. Indicating that, she achieved CHIM by the end of Vigilant. She now understands that everything is a Dream and nothing really matters. That is the reason why she acts the way she does. To her, everything is now just a "Game", and she chooses role play and have fun with it. She's viewing the world now through the lens of a "Player".
Serah’s Ascension parallels Vivec in his method of achieving CHIM. In 36 Lessons of Vivec, Sermon 12, it stated that Vivec learned the secret symbol from Molag Bal and consummated a marriage with him. Serah had a sense of the symbols through the Dragonborn, but saw the whole picture through Molag Bal when her mind was “...pulled into a maelstrom of memories”. By consummating with her in True End, you gave Serah the final piece of the secret symbol. (If it modded it correctly), Serah would now have full access to all her post-vigilant dialogues at night. A lot of it will be strange if you don’t know the lore of Elder Scroll. One example is “Restrains from mingling with the world excessively. Else you risk waking the sleeping head”. She’s not telling you to stop doing stuff within the game, she's telling you to stop adding mods to your game, else you risk of crashing it.
Now that we’re up-to-date with the Serah story, I will go into why Serah (Timeline B) is a “divergent loop” while everything else is a “convergent loop”. If you don’t have the mod installed, and get bored with the current playthrough. You can just select a “New Game”, and nothing from the previous game will be carried over. As if you are starting the next Kalpa.
If you have the Serah in your game, she will always reference back to a "previous game”. Because she’s here with you in this supposed “New Game”, the last cycle never truly ended. Just from being here, she’s creating an alternate path that is outside of the Kalpa cycle. In this timeline, she will eventually have a child with you name Mia. Serah stated that “Lizz is the link between Cycles. A being that exists both within and outside of the Dream”. Her own daughter Mia, is also a “A being that exists both within and outside of the Dream”. Just as Liz wouldn’t have been born if the Dragonborn didn’t travel to the future. Mia wouldn’t have been born if Serah (and the Dragonborn) didn’t travel to the past. Canonically, Mia is conceived in True End consummation.
In the normal Timeline A loop. All living beings (Blood) would eventually freeze up, leaving only the eternal dragons (Soul). But they too, would go dormant without Blood. Requiring a “link between cycle” to restart the Kalpa. In that far future, nothing would be left to rekindle the Kalpa, except for Lizz. But with the existence of Mia, “Soul *would become* the essence of blood. Blood *would be* the substance of a soul” - Serah’s post-vigilant. Mia and Liz together have the potential to create a world without cycles. It no longer needed to be “reset”. It will continue as long as it continues. I leave it up to your imagination on how that works.
Edited by boobi3
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