There's a famous line... I think it's from a prayer, and goes something like, "LORD, Give me the patience to accept those things I cannot change, the courage to change those things I can, and the wisdom to tell the difference." You're damn right, there are some things that you just need to accept (the Hero will never fix everything) but you'd be a fool to not do all you can (the Hero saves his friends from the monster). In our world, [censored]ing about the inevitabilities of mundane life is stupid, because there's nothing you can do about it, but there are all sorts of practical things you can do to improve your life. In the Arubis, things are different. The Thalmor aren't just sitting around whining about mortality, they're taking practical steps towards putting an end to it. In our world, we took practical steps towards erradicating / curing the pox, polio, rabies, et cetera. It used to be normal to have half your children die in infancy. Then people took sreps to change things.

In the real world, the Thalmor are the biggest effin idiots in the world. Everything they believe is wrong (on Earth).Mortality is something you just have to accept. Religion isn't something you should ever be declaring war over. Et cetera.

In Nirn, things are very, very different *. They really could cure death. Now, there's all sorts of arguments we could have about whether or not death is a bad thing, but we're not there yet. Assuming death is bad (a very common belief) why not cure it?

*though the Thalmor are still unneccessarily violent.

Is there any real evidence to support that by doing what they are doing that it will actually stop man from coming about or the creation of Mundus?

You dare question the Thalmor!?

That being said, I'm not sure. I think its along the lines of "Well in theory..." it should work, but it hasn't been done before. Not that I would be willing to take that risk, or not at least with a few more credible mages siding with it.

Honestly, we don't even know what they're really doing (besides the war & whatnot). However, the basic principles seem to be there. We know that elves are good at shaping reality, we know that the moons disappeared for a while, we know that its possible to not have a mundus, we know that gods can go poof, et cetera. It's possible that the Thalmor are going about their big goals all wrong, but their first steps seem to be based on sound logic. If people stop worshiping Shor, mytheopia says he should stop intervening and effin' up all the merish plans. Now, they're already having an uphill struggle with that one, but an uphill struggle isn't always a fight in the wrong direction.

I want to get in the head of a Mirror Logician or something..

Do you think TES VI will be about stopping the Thalmor from blowing up the world?

NIMK: Not In My Kalpa.

Halting convention now would be disastrous. Assuming that any souls even survive the process, they'd be in the middle of Oblivion, at the whim of the principalities. It's like your car breaking down in the middle of a bad, bad neighborhood. Though the Daedra are going to do a helluva' lot more than just steal your hubcaps.

I wouldn't say the Thalmor are using 'unnecessary' force. They are using force, quite violent and brutal force, but it is necessary. What are they going to do? Ask humanity nicely to stop existing? A lot of brutalities have been exacted by man on mer. There is no good guy here in terms of the method used. So we have to look to the end goal. The end justifies the means as long as there is something to justify the end. Humanity can't even decide on an 'end goal', and only the most enlightened of them have an lnkling of what it could be. The merish folk have an end goal planned out, that is beneficial to all and sundry. Logically, this justifies their means and overall cause over humanity's, therefore making their force, even if excessive at times, both necessary and justified. No violence is a good thing, but violence is inherent in the mundus and inherent in the idea of 'man'. The Thalmor are using violence to make it so that violence can longer be conceived, let alone acted upon.

@haute: If there is a possibility of that happening, and I doubt it, the Thalmor will have envisaged it and have the necessary safeguards in place to prevent such from happening. They've obviously put a lot of thought into this.

I like your abbreviation.

But really, we just don't know the details of the Dominion's plan. Is it a simple "DESTROY EVERYTHING!!!" or a careful resurrection of their chosen gods (after the eradication of Talos / Shor), or an alliance with the Magna-Ge, or what? I'll gladly admit that if they succeeded (which they won't, for meta reasons) things probably wouldn't go exactly according to plan (batw), but I see no reason to assume that their doomed to horrible failure.

Plus, some Princes would be bound to love the Thalmor

EDIT: This thread's chronology is getting all messed up! This is a response to a post which was posted after I started writing this post, so... yeah, that's why I'm putting it here.


The Thalmor have the luxury of time, and with that luxury comes a lot of options. At the very least, they could have done a more thorough job of investigating the Mede Empire's defensive capabilities so as to wage a more efficient war against them. At the greatest, perhaps they actually could have convinced mankind to work with them, if they just phrased things a bit differently. I doubt there are many humans who didn't envy the Altmer for their long lifespans. The impossibilification of mankind didn't need to be entirely violent or unwilling - the Ragada really seem to be a potential friend turned into an enemy. I agree with you that, ultimately, the Thalmor are fairly justified, and that they're not actually all that extraordinarily genocidal (for the Mundex Arena) but that doesn't make them perfect

This could be an interesting possibility considering certain princes are being revealed to have more anuic than padomaic qualities as time goes on.

The Thalmor does not speak for every Altmer. Books like the Great War and Rising Threat shows that they are traditionally (a word elves love) a minority group for most of history, though one with a lot of power. Your average elf may hate humans, yes, but not all of them are religious scholars. If all elves knew what to do to, Altmer would do nothing but plan their assault on humanity, Dunmer would have CHIM'd away, ect.

They had to lie to get in control of Summerset, too.

There were even Altmer refugees on Balfiera Island, kinda like Russian emigres.

What lie?

The Thalmor are by far Skyrim's best addition to lore: a megalomaniacal, fascistic cabal dedicated to nothing less than the end of existence as we know it, all out of a grudge (literally) as old as creation and a rather pathetic fear of their own deaths. They're delightful villains. Bethesda would be stupid, in my opinion, to set TES VI anywhere but Summerset Isle.

Of course, in order to really take advantage of the opportunity, you'd need top-notch writers who could spin a yarn of mythic plots, political intrigue, and fundamental existential questions like "Why is (mortal) life worth living, anyway?" Which could, you know, potentially cut into some of the sales of the people who want to play MANLY MAN EPIC FANTASY DRAGON-SLAYER 2017: THE QUEST FOR THE SEVEN MACGUFFINS. Hopefully Bethesda will make the right choice.

Meh, I would ha ve rather had The Beautiful.

The core problem is that The Beautiful don't really create a ton of conflict, and these games are all about stabbing people.

I think The Beautiful presented the biggest conflict of all. Change. There's so many directions they couls have taken them.

Fascism is the reaction of the petite bourgeoisie(primarily) and the bourgeoisie to fear of Communism and the struggle of the working class. . It is a situational, real-world only ideology that is more of a reaction to certain conditions than anything.

What the [censored] does this have to do with TES?

It all comes down the fact that their goal is not proven to work, based on a vague racial-memory of the dawn that might not be or ever been true. Sure, they can claim that they've got it all square with unbeknownst before now Dawn-Magic, but I'll bet you a fat sack of drakes they'd shuffle their feet and mutter something about being late for a prior engagement if you asked to see any diagrams or source materials.

Convention, however, is proven to work. The proof is in the pudding. Talos-flavored pudding.

I'm also suspicious of the efficacy of Thalmori planning. They provoked a land-war with Cyrodiil. That's only marginally more intelligent than provoking one with Russia.

They still won.

Won? Ill just say I disagree and leave it at that.

It doesn't matter what loses they took. The achieved their pre-operational goals, without losing anything. That is a victory. It's like the winter war. The Soviet Union took a lot of casualties, they still won and annexed Viborg and Karelia.

Yet they only held Hammerfell for a few years before being driven out, suffered massive losses in the war and at that and Talos is still being worshiped despite being banned.

Have they lost territory? No. Have they made any concessions to the Empire? No.

Have they won territory? Possibly.(We won't know about the status of Stros M'kai and other islands.) Have they forced the Empire to make concessions? Yes.
Concessions:
Destruction of the Blades.
Banning of the Worship of Talos.
Permission of Thalmor agents to have free Reign in Imperial Provinces.

The Altmer captured White-Gold and sacked it.

Not one drop of blood was spilled on Alinor through the course of the war.

The Elves lost, you say?

The Titus Mede was assassinated. And Cyrodiil agreed to Talos worship's ban. Thalmor or not, these are are very big things.

Talos may be still worshipped in many areas, but there are many aspects to worships, and in my view, worship is much more meaningful (powerful) when imbued with the collective vision of millions, of institutions and schools, mages and warriors, rather than the disparate and forbidden worship of scattered thousands.

And, as they say in Mournhold "Elves live for a very long time."

Pyrric Victory at best I say, I say they its no significant victory. The total annialation of their field armies, yes, precious lives lost that the Thalmor can't easily repace, yes a bloody war of attrician in Hammerfall they eventually lost, yes and the banning of Talos merely drove the worship underground and cause a backlash against the Empire, one that's seeing their borders and influence shrink and thus the authority of the Empire to enforce said religious concessions.

To me, it wasn't a victory to gloat about.