I never read infernal city but surely between ocato, and the possible COC madgod, holy crusader with lets face it HUGE power, influence and respect, could have held the empire, maybe not all of it but a good amount, together. Even though the oblivion crisis was bad, the empire had power, money, troops and leaders, it had a future when i finished the game.

No man, it didn't.

Well, the CoC is rather off the playing board, since he's busy being the MadGod.

Going off the novel:

-We know Blackmarsh is independent
-Elswyer is now a grouping of independent city-states
-Summerset and Valenwood are now a new Aldmeri Dominion
-and it's mentioned that Titus Mede had to reunite Cyrodiil before he was crowned emperor.

Sounds like a collapsed Empire to me.

Pretty much summed it up. I don't know how anybody could think the Empire had any kind of a future without oh say... an emperor.

It fell. The CoC is now the madgod, and is now residing in the SI as the new Sheogorath. It can be assumed Ocato tried to keep the empire together, but failed. Cyrodiil split into Colovia and Nibenese, like in ages past, and all the other countries seceded. Summerset Ilse grabbed Valenwood in order to recreate the Aldmeri Dominion. Black Marsh invaded Morrowind after the Red Year (MoT tell, causing Red Mountain to blow its load). It's likely the areas of Hammerfell, Daggerfall, and High Rock went back to being petty kingdoms again. In Elsywer, the mane was assassinated (huge [censored] deal) and it's now anarchy (save for the cities). Skyrim went landgrabbing on its western borders.

Titus Mede then popped up, starting off as a lowly bandit, making his way to warlord, created an army of Colovians, and took over the Imperial City, allowing him to reunite Colovia and Nibenese back into Cyrodiil.

We really need an up to date political map of Tamriel.

thank you for clearing that up, you think we will get a deadric quest from the madgod in skyrim anyone?

Actually, I want more Haskill.

In oblivion it was close to doing so,..... as there were many people speaking of our inability to hold on in the provinces,.......... and in the book Infernal city it says that it had for the most part and that Cyrodiil was now being ruled by a bandit king I think that was the phrase,......... pretty much what the guy ahead of me says lol

This.

Yeah, the madgod is still there. If you ask me, the tree is the real madgod. The scottish guy is just its icon, or avatar if you will.

I'll have to dig out my copy of the novel, but I'm not sure that Titus was a bandit chief. Maybe he was a former Legion officer before becoming a warlord? He mentions how many men were in his army when he took the Imperial City from the last warlord before him -- a few thousand at the most.

Edit: Okay, found the book. "Titus Mede had been -- and was -- many things. A soldier in an outlaw army, a warlord in Colovia, a king in Cyrodiil, and Emperor." (p. 108)

"I took this city with under a thousand men. I routed Eddar Olin's northward thrust with barely twice that, and I hammered this empire back together with a handful of rivets." (p. 109).

Well, it could be Titus started as a bandit, but it's vague enough that he might have been ex-Legion, IMO.

Thirded.

Yes, the empire collapsed. There is now a new Empire though.

I'm assuming it would less like a political map and more like political diarrhea.

I was just about to post this in response to Hellmouth's post. Titus Mede's description as the leader of a bandit army is misleading. People think by bandit, it means the guys that hid in caves in Oblivion. But bandit army is more than likely a reference to a rogue legion.

He IS the madgod, friend.

The emperor and all of his heirs are dead, I don't think the empire survived

After Uriel VII died, some other warlord guy laid siege to the Imperial City, took over, and declared himself Emperor. I believe he's held it together since then.

Bleh, I goofed on outlaw and bandit.

wait a minute ... if the empire fell and the political map changed ... doesn't that mean Skyrim could be bigger? like having i dont know the northern part of cyrodill in its "new" map

I'm sorry I'm quite lost with all the Tamriel Lore...

Skyrim, from what I can tell, expanded its borders westward, taking up some land from its western neighbors. They may have also taken some parts of the Jerall Mountains too, in Cyrodiil. It may have also taken portions of Morrowind when it got nuked, or not (depending on how much the nords wanted to fight the argonians, most likely)