Lore:Marukhati Selective

"[L]et the Staff of Towers be prepared for the ritual that will cleanse the protean substrate of the Aldmeri Taint. All Selectives are to initiate chants of Proper-Life and maintain them until a state of monothought is achieved. Then each shall Dance, duration-forward then volteface, till the Roll of Time winds withershins."
—Fervidius Tharn, Arch-Prelate of the Maruhkati Selective

The Marukhati Selective (also spelled Maruhkati) was an elite sect within the Alessian Order that was responsible for the Middle-Dawn, the longest known Dragon Break in history. Their beliefs are summarized in The Exclusionary Mandates. Due to their intense devotion to singularity, they considered all their beliefs equally important and crucial.

Beliefs

The Exclusionary Mandates of Maruhkite Selection: All Are Equal

1: That the Supreme Spirit Akatosh is of unitary essence, as proven by the monolinearity of Time.

1: That Shezarr the missing sibling is Singularly Misplaced and therefore Doubly Venerated.

1: That the protean substrate that informs all denial of (1) is the Aldmeri Taint.

1: That the Prophet Most Simian demonstrated that monothought begets Proper-Life.

1: That the purpose of Proper-Life is the Expungement of the Taint.

1: That the Arc of Time provides the mortal theater for the Sacred Expungement.

1: That Akatosh is Time is Proper-Life is Taint-Death.
—The Exclusionary Mandates

The beliefs and goals of the Selectives are summarized in Vindication for the Dragon Break, a text by Fervidius Tharn, who became Arch-Prelate of the Selectives in 1E 1188. According to the text, the Selectives believed that Akatosh was the "Supreme Spirit" and was (or ought to be) of "unitary essence", as proven inconclusively by the monolinearity of time. They viewed the Time God as originally a spirit of "humanadic purity" which had been subject to the insertion of an "Aldmeri taint", and thus needed to be "restored" to its pure state via the elimination of elven elements—an act they called the "Sacred Expungement", for which they believed the "Arc of Time" had provided them with the "mortal theater". They claimed that "Proper-Life" as enunciated by Marukh is fostered by "monothought", which serves to expunge the "Aldmeri Taint", and that "Akatosh is Time is Proper-Life is Taint-Death".

The Selectives also revered Shezarr, who they described as "Singularly Misplaced and therefore Doubly Venerated", and asked for his blessing and the guidance of the prophet Marukh to enact their "Sacred Expungement".

The Middle-Dawn

Ultimately, the sect's animosity towards all things elven was so great that they could not tolerate the notion of Aldmeri influence on their beloved Akatosh. When their rituals could not disprove this influence, the fanatical scholar-priests decided to expunge the Aldmeri traits via ritual instead.

The sect's secret masters channeled the Aurbis itself to mythically remove these aspects from the Dragon God. A staff or tower (or one represented within the other) appeared before them. The secret masters danced upon it until it writhed and trembled and spoke its protonymic (its real, original name: "Tam! RUGH!"). The tower split into eight pieces and Time broke, becoming nonlinear. After one thousand and eight years (1E 1200-2208, the estimation recognized by the Elder Council), the pieces of the tower came to rest in Mundus, and the Middle Dawn ended.

One pre-ri'Datta Khajiit account describes how, during the Middle-Dawn, Boethra was called from her battle with Orkha by the Blue Star and transported atop the Adamantine Tower by Khenarthi. There Boethra saw the Selectives speaking lies in a way that made them true, drawing runes that were attempting to make it so that neither Akha, nor Alkosh, nor Alkhan, nor any Child of Akha, nor any of the myriad kingdoms Akha had created along the Many Paths, any of the lands he'd seeded and brought into his kingdom, had ever existed. Seeing the lie the Selectives were attempting to make real, Boethra, who had once been exiled to the Many Paths by Akha, started to wander if she had ever been the Daughter of Blades at all, or if it had all been a dream of someone who'd never existed, and felt something akin to fear for the first time. Knowing the Selectives must not succeed, Boethra calculated and enacted the cuts needed to destroy both them and the lies they'd attempted to make real. Than, sensing an opportunity created by their actions, she found a tunnel to the fate they'd sought. Boethra opened her eyes to twelve spinning wheels surrounded by fire revolving beneath two warring serpents, one a serpent of flaming feathers and crystal scales with a head like a hunting bird, and another a crimson eyed serpent of blackest scales and a white mane followed by all the Void, the truth within the lies the Selectives had sought. The flame-feathered serpent emanated rejection of all "Mannish impurity in all the known worlds", the dark serpent though surrounded by chaos emanated gentleness and love for the spirits of the worlds, and in it Boethra saw a fleeting chance for peace along the wheels. As the feathered serpent's beak found purchase beneath the scales of the white maned serpent Boethra, dodging through the wheels to reach, summoned all her blades and struck at its eye, repelling it. Landing on the head of the dark serpent she drew upon its black flames, forming a blade and armor as her mind was scorched with things that were and have yet to be. She named the hawk-serpent for what it was and, reciting the Will Against Rule, dashed forward, cutting concepts at strange angles and ending the Dragon Break. This event would later come to be known as the Division of Heaven by mortals who remembered the Middle-Dawn.

Legacy

The cover of a Temple Zero Society pamphlet professing 'Monkey Truth'

Every culture on Tamriel remembers the Middle Dawn in some fashion, mostly as a time of unaccountable spiritual anguish. Several texts survive this timeless period, all (unsurprisingly) conflicting with each other regarding events, people, and regions. Some say certain wars happened, some say the gods walked, some assign a certain color to the sun, some that Cyrodiil became an "egg" or an "empire across the stars", or that the Moons remained the only constant in the heavens. But almost always, sources seemed to contradict each other. Whether or not the secret masters of the Marukhati Selective were successful is unknown, and any records of their survival were destroyed by the War of Righteousness that ended the Alessian Order a hundred years later. The only thing all cultures consistently agree upon is that, one by one, eight stars fell from the sky.

The ultimate fate of the Selective following the Dragon Break is unknown. Some conspiracy theorists believed they were still in existence in the late Third Era as a ruthless secret society. Other sources record Marukhati in the period openly, possessing knowledge of the Numidium which few believed.

Notes

• Accounts from the Tribunal Temple claim the eight stars that fell each represent an "iniquity" that Lorkhan revealed and serve as proof of the deceit of the Aedra.
• Mannimarco claims that he too "learned his mystery" due to the Middle-Dawn, and that the Selectives showed the world the "glories of the Dawn so they might learn "as above, so below".

References

Note: The following references are considered to be unofficial sources. They are included to round off this article and may not be authoritative or conclusive.