Simple answer: In RL, murder is an act of evil. You can make caveats and exceptions, but in 98% of the time, it's accurate. In TES not only are there acceptable targets, there is a near-monastic order dedicated towards salvation-through-murder that while not sanctioned by the Government, is unofficially tolerated, and their biggest rival is a cult of state-sponsored backstabbing murderers dedicated to the Queen of Political Intrigue and Plotting.

And, to me, it's still an act of evil for that organization to exist. Of course people tolerate it. First of all, it's useful to remove politcal oppenents and second messing with them will usually get you killed. And I don't like Mephela, and the "fact" that you can't call a Daedra evil (but really, I won't let the game tell me what I can call good or evil) doesn't mean I view worshiping her through assasination as some alien moral revalistism. I hated that cult.

Yeah, but I'm fairly sure that it isn't evil in and of itself. Any organization serving true life/unlife, I.E. Sithis, is more correct than anything else. After all, who can argue with the void?

Muddying the waters more, the Morag Tong actually save lives by providing an alternative to open warfare between the houses.

... Good point, I mean jeeze, Telvanni alone it probably has saved hundreds of underlings.

Why can't more wars be fought through assassins instead of kids?

If anything, I'd say a major appeal of TES is that moral questions more resemble real world moral questions than is usually the case in CRPGs. In most CRPGs, you get courses of action that are neatly labelled "Good" and "Evil", often reminding me of Saturday morning cartoons in which Evil uses red glowing energy and Good uses blue glowing energy, and that seems to be the whole of the difference between them.

... to the point where the Daedric Prince of Natural Disasters, of whom he is often described as the Enemy of the Empire, but never as evil.

I haven't read the entire six pages of this, but I have to say the original post is a hoot. Those in the know are pretty sure Vehk sixed up TS and that was the reason for the treaty. Not some terror of the OMG uber Dunmer.

Rising threat is imperial propaganda, NO chance the Thalmor had anything to do with the invasion of Morrowind. Some of these Hist would be older then time itself, you really think they are going to let a bunch of pretentious Ehlnofey brat children tell them or their lizard pets what to do? Not to mention the Thalmor don't have a lot to gain by destabilizing the far eastern providences who are unlikely to interfere or the Thalmor invade themselves. The Dominions enemy are the men.

That time Vekh "killed" Talos? Just a http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/La_petite_mort.

Dude. Yes. Why did I not make that connection earlier?

Wait, wait, what? Haven't heard that theory before.

You learn something new everyday. ^^

actually wrong. the hist were bent to do some pretty shady things. there's always loopholes, thalmor philosophy could almost be based on loopholes. thats what makes them dangerous. read lord of souls.
and one other thing let me stress this.

thalmor dont believe in an elven unity. dark elves havent had much or any connection to summerset isles for millennia. thalmor would just as well declare war on a dark elf BEFORE an imperial IF there were a GOOD ENOUGH reason.
u think they give a damn about dunmer. no.
do u think dark elf gives a damn.no. dark elf dont care. dark elf want no part of thalmor culture. or maybe they do. depends on the mer and his ambitions.

really though chimer left for a reason. veloth and his grew were doing their own thing and had a mutual disdain with the aldmeri high culture. so they left. in a high elf's eyes they committed a number of attrocities to themselves on the way to old Resdayn, like communing and obeying the anticipations. this went on for a long time. believe it that every tie to old aldmeris was cut and burnt.
mer dont favor other mer. in fact a lot of dunmer took to outlander men over outlander mer. they had their reasons. and im not saying this is a cultural thing. im just saying they dont care. neither do the thalmor. every mer for himself.

To note; the Neravarine didn't clear out the Dark Brotherhood on Vvanderfell because there was none. You did the quest in Mournhold which is on the mainland of Morrowind.

That aside, dunmers aren't extinct, what are you on about? According to some NPCs in Skyrim dunmers are even going back home already, and even more are considering going back. I can imagine a big portion of Morrowind being completely restored soon.

Oh Vehk...

I'd have thought that they do believe in elven unity, because all elves are the descendents of gods and by rights should be gods, whether the mortal elves themselves agree or not. They probably want to save the dunmer (along with the more difficult altmer and bosmer) from themselves, even if it means eliminating them, because their potentially divine souls will live on. Oh, the thalmor being behind the hist invasion really sounds like a ludicrous conspiracy theory from an understandably paranoid author. Next, we'll hear that Mehrunes Dagon told, them to do it.


Did you play the morag tong questline? Most of the special duties were about getting the dark brotherhood out of Vvardenfell. Granted, it was nipped in the bud.

Aah yeah I totally forgot about that, my bad. I guess I should replay the game sometimes soon.

Your overstating the importance of dunmer in this war. The dunmer are no friends of the dominion but the Thalmor would prefer the dunmer mind their own business while they focus on the more prominent threat which is the empire. The dunmer themselves would not care at all aslong as the war doesn't involve them.

As for the Hist, the thalmor influencing the hist is as ludicrous as the thalmor influencing the dragons. Ancient beings have a habit of viewing mortals as inferior beings and don't take to kindly to being manipulated.

Influencing =/= Manipulating. They probably supplied the Argonians, provided information, ect. And they lose control over Black Marsh anyway, sort of like what's happening with the Stormcloaks.

I don't know where you are getting them providing assistance to the Argonians. Assistance or motivation really wasn't needed, they had just butt whooped the daedra and morrowind was crippled, not to mention that dunmer and argonians had been fighting bloody wars for millenia and there is alot of animosity there so really there isn't any need for external help to explain the invasion.

Not to mention that if the Hist always wanted vengeance there would know exactly when the perfect time to get it was and they are of course extremely patient beings. I also don't know if the thalmor's influence could even stretch that far so early, at this stage there biggest concern was consolidating their power in the isles and there newly created puppet state in Valenwood.

I see the Imperials placing the blame on the Thalmor for the independence of Blackmarsh and the subsequent invasion, is propaganda. I believe that it is a way to justify how a province they thought was completely under their control, one perceived to be a backwater, could easily shrug off imperial rule. It looks bad that a former province could not only be its own nation but thrive without imperial influence.

While Morrowind and the Imperial forces in Black Marsh were still reeling from the consecutive catastrophes of the Oblivion Crisis and the destruction of Vvardenfell, the Thalmor incited the Argonians to mount a massive uprising. Black Marsh and southern Morrowind were completely lost to the Argonians, but luckily the Thalmor too lost what influence they had over the reptilians. - Rising Threat, Vol. IV

Imperial propaganda