Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Entertainment/2016 August 10

= August 10 =

The elder scrolls lore
In the elder scrolls video game series you always adventure on a planet called Nirn. There are other planets mentioned in the lore but I can't find out if there is sentient life on those planets or not? 199.19.248.107 (talk) 01:56, 10 August 2016 (UTC)
 * Try http://elderscrolls.wikia.com; the Elder Scrolls Wiki. It is very comprehensive, if it has been written about either in game or in any strategy guides or supplemental material, it's in there.  If they don't mention it there, then it hasn't been addressed in any official Elder Scrolls canon.  -- Jayron 32 17:58, 10 August 2016 (UTC)


 * Specifically, its article for Mundus (the Prime Material Plane of the Elder Scrolls universe) says it consists of "Nirn, its moons, and attendant Aedric planets." These Aedra are, roughly, the universe's "good" gods, and the mythos assigns the notion of one Aedra to each planet (much as we do with Mars and Mars). I don't think it really says that those Aedra actually live on their respective planets (but given the fantasy nature of the piece, they probably do) or who, if anyone, lives there with them. -- Finlay McWalter··–·Talk 16:26, 11 August 2016 (UTC)


 * According to the UESP Wiki, "The other astral bodies in the sky above Nirn are believed to actually be the spheres of the Aedra and Daedra, as seen from the mortal plane. The sun and stars are also punctures in the veil of Oblivion, through which the light of Aetherius shines into Mundus." Matt Deres (talk) 16:18, 12 August 2016 (UTC)
 * Nice find. In general, for anything Elder Scrolls, I find that UESP is more thorough and better curated wiki than the analogous Wikia wiki. SemanticMantis (talk) 19:04, 15 August 2016 (UTC)

Olympics: countries that made their debut at a Winter Olympics
To my surprise and amusement, I recently discovered that the British Virgin Islands made their Olympic debut at the 1984 Winter Olympics in Sarajevo. I was wondering if there were any other countries (tropical or not!) that had done the same. 220.253.147.234 (talk) 05:03, 10 August 2016 (UTC)


 * This would be common for countries that began entering both the Summer and Winter Olympics at about the same time, whether because they were newly independent or for some other reason. Since the Winter Olympics used to be held a few months before the summer games, any country that began participating in both games the same year before 1994 is a correct answer. From 1994 on, it would be more or less a 50-50 chance. Looking at List of participating nations at the Winter Olympic Games and List of participating nations at the Summer Olympic Games, just looking under the letters A through C, I find the following:
 * Andorra: first winter and summer games 1976
 * Armenia: first winter games 1994, first summer games 1996
 * Belarus: same as Armenia
 * British Virgin Islands (as per the question): first winter and summer games 1984
 * Croatia: first winter and summer games 1992
 * This was worked out by hand; it would be possible to program a computer to search the tables for more examples, but because of the data format it's not easy, so I'll stop there. I imagine that it would be true of a lot of the former Soviet and Yugoslav republics, though. --69.159.9.219 (talk) 06:06, 10 August 2016 (UTC)
 * Thanks. I had a look myself and found a few more examples – Guam, Lebanon, Liechtenstein, and Mongolia. 220.253.147.234 (talk) 08:56, 10 August 2016 (UTC)