I see no evidence that they took Mournhold. There isn't even a mention of a sack or siege of the city and several Dunmer in game say that they wish to go back to Mournhold.

Tear and Narsis are different situations. Though to be quite honest, I doubt they would have control of Tear right now, it's the capitol city of House Dres, called the Jewel in the east, a major port city and because of that a rather important city for most Dunmer probably and definitely not a city you would want to let fall. Narsis on the other hand is a city on wide open plains, the Argonian armies are very much on the downside there.

It is likely that the Argonians sacked both cities during their conquest, but in my opinion very unlikely that they would have held on to them. Granted more likely then Mournhold but still not something I would put my money on.

I am aware of their importance. I just don't see evidence that the Dunmer chopped down Hist trees though. Not that I doubt they would. But if they did I doubt they understood what they were doing or if they did it was because of a mutual hatred with the Argonians that both sides fostered for years and years, the Arnesian War being one example.

No it would not be the same as walking in and killing Jesus. There is only one Jesus. Hell you kill a Hist tree in Oblivion even if you are Argonian. That Hist tree was even being tortured BY Argonians! Killing a Hist tree would be similar to shoving a battering ram into the golden gates of heaven I think if what I remember of them being like repositories of souls for the Argos is true. It is not as bad as killing the savior of an entire people that also happens to be the son of the almighty and singular God, but it can have dire repercussions for peoples souls. Yes people would be pissed. Yeah they would go to war. Does not mean they are justified in doing so? Nope. Witchhunt for the culprits ? Sure. War? No! Of course people are never reasonable...and people always want scapegoats. Jews, Africans, Whites, Asians, Arabs Russians, Polyesians, Indonesians, micronesians and whoever else. All are easy to blame for your problems if the people in power present it in the right light to the masses. But there i go off on a tangent again.
I share a similar opinion here. I doubt the Argonians would even bother to go much farther into ash blighted Morrowind seeing as the Red Year JUST had happened. At least not going far and staying there. There is evidence of them going as far as the Telvanni's holdings. Although the Dunmer as a nation would be devastated by the Red Year I don't think they would be able to resist the Argonians out in the open but in the cities it may have been a more brutal affair. If war is anything to go by then genocide and pillaging was surely in practice. I don't know how the whole forcing the women as six slaves thing would go though with the Argos. If the Argonians are hyped up by the An-Xiheel I could see them doing this initially. However it seems they may have chilled out a bit because supposedly one group of Argonians(or an individual one) took one of the Telvanni children and reared him. I dunno how significant that is but it is there.

true, my anology was off but it was the best I could think of. Regarding the cutting of the Hist Tree, I can't find a source anywhere so I might be misremebering, or it might have been from Tamriel Rebuild, but I believe there was a hist tree in the south of Morrowind. A place that used to be Argonian land, then the Dunmer came in kicked the Argos out and cut down the tree. But like said I can't find the source.


You can find the Telvanni Dunmer/Argonian on the Riften Market. I don't know what it says either, but at the very least it means that the Argonians weren't willing to do a full on genocide.

From reading that journal and finding out what I could about the Argonian invasion, it seems there was a lot of slaughter due to past trasngressions, but there was clearly good on both sides. In Morrowind, we had the Twin Lamps who essentially broke the law to free slaves in Morrowind. Surely there would have been Argonians during the invasion who recognized that not all Dunmer are bad, and some clearly didn't feel right murdering an innocent child. That does not however imply that there weren't serious crimes committed against the Dunmer populace.

The argonians didn't have a choice during the invasion. They were all riled up on hist voodoo juju.

Nah that was just the An-Xiheel. The Argonians were just riled up on An-Xiheel propaganda.

I want pie now

^^^^ This.

The An-Xileel became the dominant faction/tribe in Argonia when they performed incredibly well during the Oblivion Crisis.

THIS GUY! ^ "Your speechcraft has increased!"

To the OP - the same thing crossed my mind when I heard about that (never read the book, though) "Morrowind is better than Oblivion!?! We'll show them! Muhahaha! BOOM! How you like your Morrowind now, biatches?"
However, I like to imagine that Bethesda has more respect for their modding community than that; even though there are some people that consistently dog every new TES game, saying the previous one was better, not everyone shares this view or hops on the "lets trash the latest TES installment" bandwagon. It's like bands - if fans liked their first album, some will always complain that the band "sold out" when they inevitably experiment with new directions. New fans that had just got into the band's latest album (whether it's the 3rd, 5th, etc.) will usually say that that album is their favorite. Most Elder Scrolls fans have a favorite game that they think is the best (though I don't think any game can be perfect to anyone). It all comes down to taste.

Ironically, some of Bethesda's biggest fans have become their biggest critics, because Beth didn't make the sequel game they wanted. In fact, to listen to some "fans", you'd think that even playing their favorite ES game without mods would be unbearable. Fortunately, the mod-ability of the games (mainly post-Daggerfall, though modding started there) lets modders make whatever their particular vision for Tamriel is come to life. "if you don't like it, you can change it."

Anyway, even if Bethesda had intended to "kill Morrowind" as an act of revenge on what they perceived as a disgruntled and non-supportive Morrowind fan base, it would be rather pointless, since those people would just keep playing Morrowind with whatever mods they like, and just ignore the events of that book or game sequels, etc. as non-canon. It would be like I kinda ignore the latest Star Trek movie as not happening in the Kirk&Spock universe or sometimes try to forget that the Star Wars prequels ever happened.

It's your own imaginary world, kids; do whatever the hell you want with it!

Cheers.

Also, to take into account, we don't know the full extent of the damage. While it seems most or all of Vvardenfell has been destroyed, and tidal waves likely destroyed coastal cities, it may well be most of the Mainland Dunmer fled rather than died in the Argonian assault, then again it may not. There are implications in Skyrim that parts of mainland Morrowind is inhabited by Dunmer, but a lot of the refugees simply never returned to their burned-out homes, likely because when you've run so far with nothing, you have nothing to use to get back.

Kind of an old post to be commenting on, but I just now saw it...

The book is not responsible for the "Nerevarine went to Akavir" claim. Oblivion is. Also, how exactly is the Nerevarine supposed to defend Morrowind from Baar Dau falling and Red Mountain exploding? What you did in Morrowind did matter. A lot. A ton. It's one of the most important things we've done in the entire series. It wasn't about saving Morrowind, it was about saving the world and learning the nature of the universe and all that jazz. You're really overreacting to such a minor thing. Morrowind was always destined for destruction. The Dunmer people bring it upon themselves.

Yeah, I mkae this joke every time someone makes this thread, but the seeds and intent of Morrowind's eventual destruction were shown in 2002 during Morrowind itself. Which means that if it was vengeance for people complaining about new games not being Morrowind, means they can travel back in time, which people like them would be more likely to use to remove the accepted flaws from later games rather than take a potshot years in the making.

Back then it could have gone anyway... Morrowind wasn't actually destroyed until Morrowind was destroyed. Okay I'm not saying the devs did this for revenge, but just because it makes sense now doesn't mean other options wouldn't have made sense.

Well, actually, the way narrative works meant that it kind of did have to go, and in a way did go as soon as it was written down that it was going to someday. Oh, sure, it didn't have to go yet, and we didn't even really have to ever see it happen, but:

In the Sermons, Vivec stops the meteor and says that if his people forget love, which is through his will only, then the moon will continue its fall.

In the game, even before he loses his godhood, Vivec and the tribunal are losing faith and influence to both internal dissent and the gods of the Empire.

When Vivec's godhood is lost, he still has thousands of years of power at his disposal, but once he disappears the fearful, awed love that was held for him begins to wane. Even with the longer lifespans of the Dunmer compared to men, there was only so much time before a culture shaken by the fact that he had been shown up an a deception and then, seemingly, abandoned by him could lose their faith and love.

Sure, Vuhon and Sul may not have wrapped it in those terms when they made their machine, but that is basically how it was laid out way back in 2002 and in the various lore posts made close after. Add to that the fact that the new Daedra worship in the Temple, which still venerated the Tribunal as saints and heroes, was likely not well liked after the Oblivion crisis and boom, Red Year.

Other options: Vivec could have remained a saint, worshipped by people massively and the leader of the new Temple.
Vivec could have moved the moon away
The moon could have lost its previous speed regardless of what was said and the crash wouldn't have had the same impact
The Civil war to end slavery could not have happened
The Empire could have supported the Dunmer when the Argonians invaded
The Argonians could have not invaded
The Red Mountain could have been spared from errupting after the moon crash landed

Vivec could have remained a god, changing his mind later on and staying in Morrowind leading all himself instead of in a Tribunal, perhaps he could have gotten the Nerevarine into the new Tribunal (this one is the weakest, but still possible)

I agree all the evidence was there, and nothing that happened was impossible, but it does not equal the only option.

In narrative terms, it was. No other ending could have done Morrowind justice. It would have been a grim story with an out-of-nowhere happy ending, which is just as bad as a happy story where all of a sudden the plucky girl suffers a brain injury and becomes permanently vegetative. The story carries the story and after a while it follows the path it has to follow. The race wide "caracter arc," if an entire race can have one, needed to go through this destruction to get to its next step.

It's a tragic story in the classical sense. A tale of man's hubris in thinking he could alter fate and usurp the gods; as such, only a tragic ending could be satisfactory. Such stories are very rare in our modern popular culture, because we hate not having everything wrapped up with a pretty little bow, and that makes the events of the Red Year even more shocking and powerful.

Protip, Oedipus could have chosen not to try to avoid the destiny laid out by the Oracle at Delphi, too. But it would have made for a damn [censored] story.

Vivec had already left the scene. The Trial wrapped up his character arc, and the Red Year was tragic for Morrowind, not for him. The cataclysm was a fitting end for a people who had literally had their hearts ripped out. Almost all the signifiers of Dunmer identity were gone. When last we heard from them, observers were remarking on the spread of Akatosh worship in the province. Redoran, Dres, Indoril and Telvanni were essentially gone from the scene. It was the end.

And I really don't want to get into this again, but you can't make these kind of arguments if you're actually familiar with what Cyrodiil was pre-Oblivion.

I am aware, thank you. I prefer Cyrodiil's presentation in Oblivion to that of the PGE.

Good. Because then we get to the agree-to-disagree, I-look-at-you-like-a-Star-Wars-fan-looking-at-Jar-Jar-Binks situation instead of making false arguments about lore.

Wish there was less condescension there, but I suppose I'll take it.

I've got to remark on this, because it's probably the first time I've ever fully agreed with anything you posted. On the rest, we'll just have to agree to disagree, as having totally different interests.

The more downright insulting thing is the invasion from Black Marsh in the second Arnesian war, how it was a piece of cake for them to destroy Great House Telvanni. We're talking about wizard-lords as old as the tribunal itself (Which is why house Telvanni isn't very pious) as well as the geographical reasons. The Argonians could fair well in the Southern swamps in Dres territory (Who they for some reason didn't unleash their fury on from the past like they did Telvanni, being the main capturers of slaves and starting the first Arnesian war), and along the Thir River, but they wouldn't stand against Dunmer once they hit the Velothis or Boethian Mountains, and to attack heavily fortified Port Telvannis.

Also when it comes to the Dunmer regaining their footing, I really don't know. Tuvene Arathan says: "Elves are conditionally fertile -- that is, they only conceive when population pressure is low -- so expanding populations do not force them to explore or war with neighbors. The arts, literature, sorceries, technology and theology that have flourished within ancient Elven cultures have profoundly shaped the development of the Empire's manish and beast races."

To be fair, the Argonians were being hive-minded. You don't have to watch much Sci-Fi to see just how gorram effective that can be.

I think a lot of people mistake coolness with power, not even the Telvanni could save Morrowind from both a crippling natural disaster and an argonian invasion.