Did it exist?

There aren't really any Nations in Oblivion. Each world is "owned" by a Deadra Lord I think.

National selection?

Race?

Province?

Nat(ural) selection?

I'm not sure what exactly you're asking for.

Natural Selection and Racial Selection ha

Slow stuff gets eaten.

Fast stuff doesn't

Simple as that.

Natural selection (evolution) doesn't exist/isn't referenced in the TES universe.

Racial selection: you can pick whatever race you want to be.

Well, the Mortal world hasn't been around but for several thousand years, so natural selection really wouldn't have time to appear anyways, besides in predator/prey relationships but not species wise. Too short of a time for species to adapt.

Paws pretty much summed it up.

Probably not as we know it, since the Mundus has only existed for a couple of thousand years in linear time. The Nirnroot missive does mention evolution, though. However, it also mentions that it would take "millions of years" for the Nirnroot to evolve to its current point, so I question its credibility.

Natural selection affects the makeup of populations in seconds. As a cause of new species and adaptations or mutations, thousands of years.

Indeed. I was talking about evolution, though, as talked about in the Nirnroot missive, which implies many millennia of adaptation and mutation.

The Nirnroot was effected magickally by the ash from Red Mountain.
My amendment to that proposal is that the ash that fell from the sky that entire year mixed with the soil, and again, due to the magical nature of the root, contributed to the aforementioned changes. The ash became a catalyst of sorts, forcing a change in the very makeup of the Nirnroot. Although very little ash from that dark time remains, I have done tests on newer ash samples sent to me from Vvardenfell. They show little to no magical properties, certainly none of which could affect a plant to that magnitude. However, the rare occurrence of what's known as Ash Salt in the normal ash does contain very potent magical abilities. In fact, some native Dunmer are said to harness that ability to create a cure for the Blight, which pervaded their realm many years ago. I feel this magic, meshed with the Nirnroot's inherent magic caused the radical change... in essence; the root "healed itself." - Nirnroot Missive

It could have been millenia, or just two minutes during the Dawn Era. Anything and everything concerning the development of Nirn could have occurred in Timeless Time.

How about the Dunmer. In the imperials opinion they adapted to their surroundings. Yes we know thats not what happened but they though that so there has to be a possibility that something like that could have happened.

My only point was that the Missive mentions evolution on the scale that we know it, across millions of years. I wasn't saying anything about the Nirnroot itself.



And an eccentric alchemist living in a Skingrad basemant would know about the metaphysics of the Dawn Era... how?

I also don't think non-linear time is as easily explained as, say, the seven days of Genesis, which is explained by some by the statement "seven days could have been millions of years to God". "Non-Linear Time" implies paradoxes such as I'm-My-Own-Grandpa; multiple occurrences that are mutually exclusive in linear time can happen in non-linear time. "Timeless" does not imply that millions of years transpire in a relative second; "Timeless" implies that there is no time.

Seconds? It's an issue of scale which changes over generations.

But, this talk about national selection is all [censored].

Natural selection exists in the TES Universe, of course.

Nah. Natural selection on a minute scale does happen in seconds, technically. Like Paws said, "Slow stuff gets eaten. Fast stuff doesn't." Therefore, the slow genes are diminished. Over generations, you would see a result in the genotypes of the species. That's natural selection.

Right, does that statement have any relevance?

Or evidence to back it up?

Is that not the question being asked?

Nirn has been around for millions of years?

Kinda makes the last three ages look a little unspectacular really.

Yeah, got that. Don't mean [censored] to me.

The effect of any population change from natural selection depends on the species and the natural selective process. Major catastrophes work in a matter of seconds or minutes, but how often do they work when most species on Earth aren't adapted to meteor strikes.

And which species? E. coli or Pseudomonas? Fungi? Nematodes? Fruit flies? Oranges? Lions? Tigers? Bears? Sequoia trees?

The fact that it's only occured on a very small scale doesn't mean it doesn't exist.

I agree!

Er... that's not natural selection. Colliding with a planet is not genetically beneficial to a meteor.