Altmer aren't the first.

[MonkeyMummyMoney]

This is my own take on the subject applying in game lore and real life logic, i am well aware that this is likely wrong. But, bethesda has done such a truly terrible job at keeping anything consistent, that i've picked up the hobby of trying to make sense of a tangled up web of lies and contradictions.

This post will be going over how the game states that the altmer were the first and how i think that's ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥. I'll be marking any sections that go into my theory and aren't supported by lore, that way it hopefully wont confuse anyone.

There's a common myth within the elder-scrolls universe that the altmer (High-Elves) were the first elves, and much to their hubris nature the high-elves seem all too quick to accept this as fact.

However, i would accept this as largely fact if it weren't for the green-pact and the common held belief that tamriel is the birth place of all life, something the lore of the khajit supports.

(Theory section)
I think that the Atronoch were the first sentient... "things" on nirn for at least this kalpa (Maybe all of them) and through a process similar to the green-pact became the fleshy things that build short lived empires, trying to gain praise from ghostly people not worth the time.

(Theory section ends)

For those that aren't aware the green-pact was a event in bosmer history where the wood elves lost the ability to change form at will, the spirtual beings that they were, were given a permanet shape. they can still shape-shift, but it's not something they talk about because they have no control over it and just end up stuck as a mindless beast not too different from a spriggan until they die.

(theory section)
Khajit have a similar event in their history, they too at one point in time were able to shape-shift, but now have lost the ability to do it at will, instead depending on the lunar cycle and time of year, they are born a different shade of feline that ranges to house cat, to saber cat to a race that is literally no different from wood-elves.

I think the khajit were a different branch of the bosmer, just like orcs, elves and hist trees (Possibly all life on nirn, all of it.)

These early proto-elves migrated, any traces of them existing outside of the summerset isles were lost to time. before someone brings up "They would of had records of this" allow me to use some real life logic. can you, what ever ethnic group you may be, actually tell me what your people were like/where they came from exactly before they were able to read/write? chances are you can't and the few that think they can are just going to use stories some elder told you that an elder told him and so on and so forth. problem there is telephone effect, chances are whatever they told you isn't the truth.

High-Elves weren't created knowing how to read and write, they had to learn that on their own.

The aedra being the first spirits that gave up their immortality to create all things, possibly because of the green-pact.

How they got from valenwood to modern day summerset isle, I'll apply some more real life logic. at one point in time, the earth was a super continet, applying real world logic i think that nirn may of had the same thing. which would explain how the giants came from atmora, elves from summerset isle and the Akavari from Akavir.

They orginated from valenwood and migrated before recorded history.

This does not apply to the red-guard because the red-guard aren't human. they aren't even from the same time-line, they came from a past kalpa along with the left-handed elves and possibly the slod.

(theory ends)

(Finale statments)
I think that within the world of elder scrolls, all life came from valenwood, the bosmer being what all things come from. but, in a time before written history, these groups migrated, slowly evolving over time and forgetting the truth. all they have history of are spirtual beings that gave up their immortality for them to exist, these beings can be made out as ancient bosmer who lost their shape-shifting and immortality abilties due to the green-pact. The aedra being the ones that accepted their fates and the deadra being the ones who rejected it and sealed themselves away in pocket dimesions to stop the full effect of the green-pact from consuming them whole. The only two princes where this isn't the case would be Malacath and Dagon who aren't true princes in the sense that they were "born" it. Malacath was tainted and Dagon was imprisoned by Alduin in a past kalpa. (When Dagon says that Tamrial is his, he's not technically lying. however, the tamrial he once knew no longer exists.) this would also apply to the madgod because his creation has more to do with greedy princes and less with powers beyound his comprehension.

As to why the princes don't leave these pocket realms, i think fear of alduin has a lot to do with this. Alduin (He has a different name, but i'll save that for a later date.) and sithis being the two things they literally have no power against. so, the princes hide away in their pocket palaces to avoid his wrath.

The only one willing to tempt him being dagon, because as alduin showed in their past fights, dagon is one of the few things that can actually hold their own against him. Can't kill him, the only thing that could is sithis, but could cause him more trouble than he's worth.

(Mehrunes razor being a trophy from their last engagement.)

(I have another theory pertaining to the deadric princes themselves, but i'll save that for later.)

the only true natives are Khajit, Bosmer and Orcs (Argonins likely came from akavir. the Tsaesci being my thinking for this. The Tsaesci are a black marsh native sentient vampire snake race, one that has an uneasy peace with their Argonian cousins. Tsaesci are from the same race as the Akavir vampire snakes who consumed all the humans in Akavir and turned into them, one of them eventually being a ruler of Tamrial. The argonians being a sub-sect of Tsaesci that evolved with out the need to feed on the blood of the living, likely due to the hist's influence.)

[alexander_dougherty]

First Altmer were not the first, the ALDMER or Old Elves were First. They are/were transformed Aedra who were too weak to survive as Aedra after they spent their strength creating the Mundus.

Second Atronachs are Daedra and therefore from OBLIVION not Nirn.

Third Khajiit History is unreliable because the keep getting enslaved ny Altmer/Dunmer and even when they aren't they have a tendency to eat MoonSugar which is just unrefined Skooma.

Fourth Bosmer do have control over their Shifting abilities, it's just that if they go too far they can't turn back, and using their shifting abilities is forbidden onder the Green Pact.

[Darth Revan]

as alexander_dougherty already wrote the altmer was not the first, the aldmer was the first and the ancestors of all known elven races. i am not 100% shure but out of my rememberence the altmer are the elven race which comes closest to the aldmer out of all elven reaces we know so far. (they have changed less than all other elven reces)

[voehringer_nitron]

The history of orcs is also tied to that of Trinimac/Malacath. During the Velothi movement, in which the Daedric Lord Boethiah spoke to the prophet Veloth to lead the Aldmeri sect which would become the Chimer and then Dunmer, to a homeland of their own. There they could persue daedra worship. The Aldmer god Trinimac tried to stop this, but Boethiah defeated him (according to some versions Boethiah ate him) and assumed his form. After Trimac's defeat (and "expulsion") he became Malacath, and his Aldmeri worshippers became Orcs.

[MonkeyMummyMoney]

Voehringer_nitron
I don't really follow the Trinimac origin because orginally Orcs weren't. Bethesda didn't shoe-horn that lord of the rings easter egg in until skyrim.

Most of my theroies are built off the foundation of older Elder scrolls lore because newer lore is luaghably bad and riddled with contradictions that didn't exist two games ago, this is likely because of

1.) Share-holders over reaching

2.) Too many people writing for the game and then devs having to change things to make them fit within the constructs of certain quests. (Hermaus Mora's quest would have to be retweaked to remove Bosmer and Orcs which would take actual man-power where's leaving them in would take no man power.)

Personally, I think the origin for most of the races on nirn (And possibly the history of nirn as a whole) is likely far different to what the myths and legends (which seems to be the era that TES games are set in. some mixture of the dark ages and the age of myth.)

But, since bethesda seems hell-bent on leaving the TES world super unrealisitic, I have no choice but to try and make sense of an increasingly more contradictory lore, typically to my frustration. That's not even touching on the bad writing, but i can defend that by saying real life myths and legends aren't terribly well written either. Generally speaking of course. Many of those myths and legends ended up defining what is and isn't a good story in modern man.

Even if you've never read any of Astrophanes works, chances are you've heard his stories and his jokes.

Anyways, following modern bethesda, and the ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ trash writing/world building they present you with, you are right and i am wrong.

I have no problem stating things that aren't right. I even said at the start of my post i was likely wrong. I also don't care a whole lot of entertaining bethesda's nonsense, you shouldn't either. if they can't keep anything consistent, why should you bother learning it?.

You shouldn't. that's just bad writers relying on the populairty of the medium.

Even teh good parts TES is ♥♥♥♥ you've heard or read once before, some of it even being slightly altered events from the bible. Which is fine, i guess. It's lazy, but everyone does it now and the bible it's self is guilty of taking earlier stories, so.

[MonkeyMummyMoney]

Legat Lucanus:
That's another logical loop-hole that i am physically incapable of comprehending.
I get what you;re saying and what bethesda is getting at with it, this is a group that has not evolved much if at all despite being present in every biome.

Logically i would conclude that this might be due to a long-lived race that is borderline sterile, few times they do reproduce it would be with their own family.

On a fudemantal level, i wouldn't write them that way without giving a logical explanation for it.

This would also be a good indicator of a weaker race. A group that rarely reproduces because there really isn't a need when you live as long as they do, the few times they do it's with their own family as a means of maintaining a warped sense of "purity". They don't reproduce, positive adaption never really sets in, blood-lines built off of incest lead to genetic defects (Sterile women) and mental instablility and eventually death. It's like cloning a clone almost.

I don't really need a play-by-play on how this idea is wrong.
I don't personally care if what i've said contradicts the dribble bethesda puts out there, but if you want to explain to me how this is wrong and give real reasons as to why it is, don't take the first comments approch. I'm not going to respawn to it because i stated at the top it's likely wrong, that should logically conclude i don't really care what bethesda has to say on it.

To be more accurate, i don't really care what Todd and his team have to say on it.
If you can bring up Julian Lefay's and Ted Peterson's work as proof that i'm wrong, i will very gladly accept as fact and be totally done with it.

(For those that don't know, they made the Elder scrolls what it is today. Todd took over and kind of just turned into a milking machine that barely works and he wont bother fixing it because he knows the consumer will just come and fix it for him.)

[MonkeyMummyMoney]

Originally posted by alexander_dougherty:

First Altmer were not the first, the ALDMER or Old Elves were First. They are/were transformed Aedra who were too weak to survive as Aedra after they spent their strength creating the Mundus.

Second Atronachs are Daedra and therefore from OBLIVION not Nirn.

Third Khajiit History is unreliable because the keep getting enslaved ny Altmer/Dunmer and even when they aren't they have a tendency to eat MoonSugar which is just unrefined Skooma.

Fourth Bosmer do have control over their Shifting abilities, it's just that if they go too far they can't turn back, and using their shifting abilities is forbidden onder the Green Pact.

Them being enslaved by several groups doesn't make their lore any less viable.
Take the jews, They were enslaved by almost everyone yet you don;t see any logical people completely ignoring all of their lore and mythos because of it.

Hell, even the russians fit the same description.
Russians are Slavic and the Slavic were slaves to Islam during the Jihad, The irish being literal slaves in their own lands being another great example.

Bosmer can't shape-shift at all because as soon as they do they for all intent and purpose die. They only perform the wild hunt when they have to, often during extreme war times. The only Bosmer group that has total control over their shape-shifiting aspects are the bosmer vampires but even they are limited to a energy form not too different from a Wisp and even still a bosmer vampire is at least only half a bosmer.

Khajit vampire aren't mentioned much, if at all, so i would logically assume their vampires are similar. They have greater control over their latent shape-shifting.

Khajit can also shape-shift but they are limited to a lunar cycle. (A khajit born on one day can be an ohmes rhat, a group that is idetical to bosmer in every way and a khajit born on a different day will be identical to a sabre cat.)

Also, Skooma doesn't have the same effect on Khajit that it does everyone else. It could be tolerance to it or it could be on a genetic level they don't get any of the negatives from abusing it like elves, orcs and humans do. I suppose goblins as well, if the riekling are smart enough to know booze can get them drunk off their asses, i'm sure they know skooma makes them feel even better.

For future refrence, all of my theory posts is me trying to figure out the contradictory web of lies that is modern TES lore by applying some degree of real world logic. Obiviously, i can't tell you how or why Sithis either created life or allowed it be created, there is no real world logic to apply and i'm not about to try and figure out the psyche of a primordial god by using a real life human personality as a bases. it would be on-par to me trying to tell you what the universe was like before the big-bang, i can't do that. no one can do that. I can guess, i can even make a logical assumption, but at the end of the day i wont do either because it's too far back and the very laws physics and nature didn't apply back then. In theory, anything is possible. Which actually is the base for a story I'm writing, but that's besides the point. lol

(This means rattling off a list isn't going to make me change my mind, most likely... I'm either well aware of this and don't care or it's an inconsistent nonsensical point that i am incapable of comprehending or accepting.)

With in the TES lore there is no way to ever figure this out because everything outside of sithis , alduin and his brood of dragons is constantly destroyed, recycled and reborn different each time. While that idea of a constant cycle isn't unknown, it's thought our own universe has a similar event, the "spirits" that create all life aren't the first spirits. The things that would know the origin, the things closest to sithis, have no idea because they aren't the orginals anymore and the only race that was trying to understand the world through the use of science, the dwemer or deep elves, are largely ignored by the rest of the world. if it weren't for their dissapperence (I think they hopped on rockets and left nirn as a means of escaping their fate to be destroyed by alduin.) they would be largely ignored by the rest of the primitive world that still relies on magic and worships spirits and pseudo-spirits that likely aren't anywhere near as grandios as they like to pretend.

Much like the history of ancient red-guards, that information is lost forever.

[voehringer_nitron]

Originally posted by 1001YellowDaffodils:

Voehringer_nitron
I don't really follow the Trinimac origin because orginally Orcs weren't. Bethesda didn't shoe-horn that lord of the rings easter egg in until skyrim.

Actually, it's been around since Morrowind, the first TES game where Orcs were a playable race and not monsters.

http://en.uesp.net/wiki/Morrowind:The_True_Nature_of_Orcs

But yeah, it's pretty similar to the origin of Orcs used by Tolkien and D&D.

I remember reading The Frogs back in sixth grade, but I really don't remember much about it, aside from a trip to Hades.

[MonkeyMummyMoney]

Voehringer_nitron
In morrowind they were considered a beast race, even in the game files they were called a beast race and there's even in-game books that tell the story of the ayelids wiping out groups of tribal orcs that were set up around cyrodil, in later games the orcs were changed to khajit, which I can accept that.

I mean even Trinimac's Origin doesn't really hold up, I would make more sense if Molag Bal was the one who "Cursed" him, because then you could play the vampire card.

Following the modern lore, Orcs came into being because they were the followers of trinimac or at least worshipped him, right? Well... Trinimac was sort of a big deal to all Altmer, I doubt only a small group worshipped him. So, why aren't all high-Elves orcs now?

Even the... Deadric "Crowning" of Trinimac is still kind of nonsensical. Vivec, Sotha Sil, Dagoth Ur and Alamexia were cursed by Azura and all four of them had power comparable to the princes, yet you didn't see any of them crowned as princes, Dagoth Ur would of likely accepted it.

Logically, i would say that Boethia killed Trinimac then pretended to be him, but that doesn't really explain the orcs origin or why Malacath is considered his own idenity by Sanguine.

Either i dreamet it or read it in game somewhere (My dreams aren't that grand, at times i do mistake them for real world events.) but some of the orcish tribes view malacath as a... sort of lie almost, they shun him and think that trinimac survived the consuming or curse, he just slipped away and went into hiding... Or didn't really care enough to bother being a living god to anyone anymore. After all, if everyone thinks you're dead and you have this deformed demon pretending to be you, it's easier to slip away for awhile then to go right back into the spot-light.

Hell, it could of been Trinimac made a deal with Boethia and the only way to end the war would be for him to disappear, whatever Malacath is (Which when you think about it he's kind of the most unknown of the princes.) isn't actually trinimac. could be some aspect of boethia given sentience that thinks he was once him, could be a child between the two. THAT would of been a more interesting outcome.

The generally small numbers of orcs kind of makes sense. no doubt they found breeding with other races hard because of their looks and stigma, so they often breed with their families, Giants, Trolls, Orgres and Goblins would be the expected outcome. Deformed groups with lesser intelliegence, doesn't really explain the goblins and rikelings already present before the ayelids arrived in cyrodil and before the chimer arrived in morrowind, but TES lore isn't an exact science, no matter how hard i try to make it one.

[MysticMalevolence]

Originally posted by 1001YellowDaffodils:

Voehringer_nitron
I don't really follow the Trinimac origin because orginally Orcs weren't. Bethesda didn't shoe-horn that lord of the rings easter egg in until skyrim. Most of my theroies are built off the foundation of older Elder scrolls lore because newer lore is luaghably bad and riddled with contradictions that didn't exist two games ago

And the Dragonborn was an bloodline, and had little to do with actual dragons.

Well, the foundation of Elder Scrolls lore is kind of contradiction; that's how all of daggerfall is canon, after all, and how Vivec is both god and mortal. It was always a bit silly.

Anyhow, this is wrong anyway. The True Nature of Orcs[en.uesp.net], which is the book that states they were called the Orsimer and related to Trinimac, was present in Morrowind.[en.uesp.net]
True Nature of Orcs clearly states that they were "mislabeled as beastfolk."

Speaking of our pal Vivec, though...

Originally posted by 1001YellowDaffodils:

2.) Too many people writing for the game and then devs having to change things to make them fit within the constructs of certain quests. (Hermaus Mora's quest would have to be retweaked to remove Bosmer and Orcs which would take actual man-power where's leaving them in would take no man power.) [/qupte]
When Vivec achieved CHIM, he changed history so that he was always a god, despite being a mortal.
I would expect a similar thing happened with the khajiit and bosmer.
They were, after all, split apart by divine intervention during a time period where time itself was not linear. Thus, the result is that the bosmer are and have always been elves, and the khajiit are and have always been beastfolk, and elves and beastfolk have never been related, but despite this the khajiit and the bosmer split from the same people--it's one of the contradictions in Elder Scrolls lore that you're going to have to accept, because it's not written to have any one linear truth and never was. Sure, you can say that's bad writing--Skyrim's main quest certainly had terrible writing--but it won't change that the Elder Scrolls loves to contradict itself on purpose.

[alexander_dougherty]

Originally posted by 1001YellowDaffodils:

Originally posted by alexander_dougherty:

First Altmer were not the first, the ALDMER or Old Elves were First. They are/were transformed Aedra who were too weak to survive as Aedra after they spent their strength creating the Mundus.

Second Atronachs are Daedra and therefore from OBLIVION not Nirn.

Third Khajiit History is unreliable because the keep getting enslaved ny Altmer/Dunmer and even when they aren't they have a tendency to eat MoonSugar which is just unrefined Skooma.

Fourth Bosmer do have control over their Shifting abilities, it's just that if they go too far they can't turn back, and using their shifting abilities is forbidden onder the Green Pact.

Them being enslaved by several groups doesn't make their lore any less viable.

Actually it does, because their books were destroyed and their culture suppressed, and when the survivors hit the Skooma it gets even more twisted.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not picking on the Khajiit, that they managed to keep any history is amazing considering what was done to them, but it has become muddled and less than reliable. It's made even worse due to their own mysticism, interpretting things as spiritual when they aren't and vice-versa.

You can't compare this to what's happened in Human history, because the Elves had magic to root out people, which eliminates whole chunks of history and culture.

Originally posted by 1001YellowDaffodils:

Bosmer can't shape-shift at all because as soon as they do they for all intent and purpose die. They only perform the wild hunt when they have to, often during extreme war times. The only Bosmer group that has total control over their shape-shifiting aspects are the bosmer vampires but even they are limited to a energy form not too different from a Wisp and even still a bosmer vampire is at least only half a bosmer.

The Wild Hunt has nothing to do with shifting, the Wild Hunt is a Daedric ritual for Hircine, although the game confuses you because it is about werewolves, but in the lore it is just about hunting down someone for Hircine, anyone can be nominated for it.

Also Bosmer can shift more than you realise, they retain the magic from the Mythic Era but the Green Pact specifically forbids them from using these abilities, and since most Bosmer follow the Green Pact to some degree they don't use these abilities. When they do use it, it usually creates another species of monster, which is where most monsters originate from. Most of this is in the in game books, especially in older games, but it also spelled out in the Elder Scrolls Online game (AKA Tamriel unlimited) as well.

Originally posted by 1001YellowDaffodils:

Also, Skooma doesn't have the same effect on Khajit that it does everyone else. It could be tolerance to it or it could be on a genetic level they don't get any of the negatives from abusing it like elves, orcs and humans do. I suppose goblins as well, if the riekling are smart enough to know booze can get them drunk off their asses, i'm sure they know skooma makes them feel even better.

You might want to tell that to the Skooma crazed Khajiit in one of the Dwemer ruins, while they have a slight resistance to it, the powerful effects of Skooma does exactly the same to them as it does to everybody else, it just takes a few weeks longer.

[Kasane Randell MFer]

All I see is wall of texts saying "i'm right and your wrong". Move along.

[MysticMalevolence]

Skooma has a similar effect on khajiit as it does the other, moonsugar doesn't, if I recall correctly.
Moonsugar is a khajiit thing, skooma was apparently created by the dunmer by distilling moonsugar.
It's like the poppy flowers of Elder Scrolls.

[Kondaru]

Originally posted by 1001YellowDaffodils:

Hell, even the russians fit the same description.
Russians are Slavic and the Slavic were slaves to Islam during the Jihad, The irish being literal slaves in their own lands being another great example.

Ouch, that's so far from being true that I do not know where to begin. Perhaps - since Skyrim discussion board is not for history lessons - just a short summary: Slavs are called Slavs at least since 6th century AD, and origin of the word seems to be related to Slavic "slovo" (or "word") rather than to Latin "slaves". While some *groups* of Slavs had been enslaved in the past, and there had been many Slavic slaves world-wide (as with majority of other ethnic groups, by the way), this has nothing to do with their name. All the events that could lead to the assumption, such as enslavement of some Slavs by Otto the Great and/or Islam invasions, are obviously unrelated as all of them happened long after Slavs were known as Slavs. Also there had never been a period when all/majority of Slavs or even all/majority of Russians were enslaved. :-)

* * *

Back to the topic: while my own interpretation on elven history in TES is different, and while I believe TES lore to be more... eh... trustworthy, I still like much of Your theories. There are some things, however, that make little sense to me. You are making some wild assumptions, like e.g. that early elves had no knowledge of writing and reading. That would make sense if they evolved from *animals*, but if they are related to et'Ada then there is no one reason why we should believe they were primitive and uneducated at any point in their history. If such is the case then they have probably *started* as high beings, and were able to record their lore easily from the very beginning.

So why so little is known about history of early inhabitants of Nirn? I would expect it to be related to things like:

> There had been wars, domestic wars, and a lot of traveling back and forth. Races split, people ventured, records were lost. Unless they were not, that is. Who knows, possibly all the records are still stored safely in Dwemeri lexicons?

> On many occasions people *want* to erase some parts of their past. Especially parts inconvenient to them. There had been numerous times when books were burned in our own history, one famous case in Chinese history[en.wikipedia.org] during the reign of Qin Shi Huang.

> This is especially so, for elven races as they seem to be strongly... eh... focused on their racial believes. Again, my own theory is that Altmer are not the strongest, highest or most prominent of Aldmeri races. They are not necessarily related to Aldmer closer than any other elven races. They are simply revering their Aedric ancestry the most - and that's it.

> Tamriel is known for secretive conspiracies and cults, such as Psijic Order; such as aedric/daedric influences; etc. History could have been falsified. Many times.

> Eventually, with all the kalpa and Dragon Breaks taken into account, *numerous* histories can be true at the same time. Which means that Tamriel natives had been trying to establish consistent theories while basing on inconsistent facts. It alone is a great explanation on why some things are unclear and seemingly inconsistent in TES lore.

[Curufinwe]

O-kay, not gonna touch the main argument here in this, but heres my take on the origin of the elves and men in TES.

Ok so, when the aedra decide to make mundus, some of them weaken considerably and end up on nirn. these are called the ehlonfey. half of the ehlonfey end up close together, so they group together and manage to retain alot of their power an knowledge. they are the old ehlonfey. The other half is scattered across nirn, and wander across it, losing alot of their knowledge and power, but gain alot of worldly wisdom and toughness from wandering around nirn, because nirn at this point (late dawn age) is pure chaos. Time is flucuating, deadra and aedra can walk across its surface at will, its a very nasty place to be (outside of the stronghold of the old ehlonfey). these are the wandering ehlonfey. Eventually, the wandering ehlonfey gather up together and manage to find the old ehlonfey. the wandering ehlonfey are mazed that their kin are still alive, but the old ehlonfey looked at the old ehlonfey and said "ummmmmm, you guys are hobos, GTFO" (paraphrasing, obviously). this led to a war between the two, which led to the shattering of the mega contienent into the various continents of today, with the old ehlonfey stornhold and its sourronding lands becoming tamriel, and the outlying regions becoming atomorra, yokuda, etc.

Now, why does this matter? because the old ehlonfey eventually became the aldmer , who in turn split into the various elven races, the altmer, the bosemer, the altmer, etc. Now, the reason the altmer say they "came first" is becasue there the closet to the aldmer. They are the elven race that looks closet to the aldmer, thanks to their selective breeding, and has the closest culture, thanks to their fanatiscism with their ancestors. so really, they dident come first.

not, the wandering ehlonfey also gave rise to others. it is heaviliy suggested that the wandering ehlonfey, under the indirect influnce of loken, eventually became Men. so really, the ehlonfey came first.

thats my take on all that. sorry for any grammer, ive got very litle sleep