Nu-Mantia Intercept Letters: http://www.imperial-library.info/content/nu-mantia-intercept

Decent summary of them: http://www.imperial-library.info/content/facts-and-opinions-nu-hatta-intercept

Key line:

Here's the kicker.

These letters are trying to warn the Empire that an Oblivion invasion is imminent but Ocato wouldn't take it seriously. He says that the Emperor and Empire have more blatant threats to worry about at the time being.

The big point of these letters however is the role of Towers and Stones.

What I found most interesting was that the Heartland High Elves, the Ayleids, built White-Gold Tower to mimick Ada-mantia/Adamantine/Ur Tower.

The Altmer of the Isles preferred dracochrysalis, that is stopping magical energies from degrading into lesser forms, whereas the goal of White-Gold Tower and the Ayleids was to re-reach the divine by reversing the effects of Convention.

The letters blatantly point out that the Ayleids were not destroyed, that they just withdrew into a hidden existence. The intolerance towards the former slaves of the Ayleids (humans) drove a lot of them to Valenwood.

Also, White-Gold Tower was built to mimick the Wheel that represented creation.

I can't help but believe that the extremist Thalmor government (who we can all commonly agree want to do something to the Mundus, either undo it and return to Divine Matter, or unmake men, or whatever) that reformed the Aldmeri Dominion are in fact the Ayleids driven from Cyrodiil. The Intercept letters say that it was a conspiracy in the making since the Merethic Era, and alludes to the conspiracy stopping at the Oblivion Crisis... but we never saw the return of the Ayleids in Oblivion? Why was that? Or was the Oblivion Crisis part of a plan to weaken the Empire's strength and give the Thalmor boasting rights for "stopping the invasion," which we know is total bogus. Maybe they closed some gates in Elven lands, but we know that it was Martin with the PC's help who sealed Oblivion away.

The first Thalmor government formed in Valenwood but was dismantled (was it?) when Tiber Septim brought Valenwood under the Empire's control. The second Thalmor government popped up in Summerset Isles and claimed to save the Altmeri people from the Oblivion Crisis.

Is it possible that the Thalmor are in fact Ancient Ayleids (Ancient Aliens, bro, ancient aliens) that deal with the Principalities of Oblivion in order to utilize the towers for their own twisted purposes? From the Intercepts:


So either the Thalmor are Ayleids that have merged into Bosmer/Altmer culture through breeding and other means over the centuries and kept their goals, or the Thalmor really studied the Ayleids to find out what the purpose of White-Gold is, and their ultimate goal is to use White-Gold's resemblance of creation to "pluck its strings" to try and end it all. Either way, the "return of the Ayleids" cited in the Intercepts never happened in Oblivion, so I think Bethesda has something planned for them.

In PGE1…
The Elven harassment of the First Empire gave rise to an elite form of support troop for the Valley armies, the battlemage^{http://www.imperial-library.info/content/pocket-guide-empire-first-edition-cyrodiil#1}
With the annotation of YR, member of the Thalmor…
1. "Our old students forget themselves"

"Our"…


But http://www.imperial-library.info/content/dominion-prism-textract is most revealing…
was specified under Thalm[OR] Approvals AE Ayleidoon

If I understand well this sentence it indicate Thalmor = Ayleidoon…


Edit : And if you take http://www.gamesas.com/topic/1420548-on-boethiahs-summoning-day/ as dev'works we can see Idhdean, Lord of Vindasel (an ayleid city), as a member of the Thalmor…

The thing is, we know practically nothing about YR other than that he comes from Summerset. Since he's an agent or at least a subject of the Second Era Dominion, we can be pretty sure that YR is not a Thalmor because the Thalmor of the time was basically the Dominion's puppet government in Valenwood; it did not rule in Summerset. Really, we don't even know if YR is a member of the government at all; we can assume that his uncle is based on the context, but YR himself (herself?) is a mystery.

Moreover, the original AD didn't seem nearly as bent on returning to the Dawn by destroying the world as the later Skyrim version did. As the OP mentions from the Intercepts, the Elves of Summerset used Crystal-Like-Law as their mechanism to attempt their ascension into Aetherius, and Crystal-Like-Law continued to stand for almost 4250 years after the Ayleids and Altmer went their separate ways (thanks again to Valenwood and the rise of the Camoran dynasty there). If the Fourth Era Thalmor's desire to destroy Mundus indicates that they were descended from the Ayleids, then they would have had to keep that dream alive for almost 4000 years after their defeat by Alessia before their rise in Summerset. Prior to that, Crystal Tower would have held the Altmer's attention.

I prefer a fan theory posted some time ago that suggests that the Thalmor are extreme because Crystal Tower fell. Even before the Crisis, they were considered a political minority according to the sources we have for the Great War, but that could be attributed to Tiber Septim's use of Numidium--a construct devised using the Heart of their godly enemy that has a habit of breaking Time, their godly lord, whenever it's activated--against their Tower. The Tower's destruction in the Oblivion Crisis removed the Altmer's traditional route toward ascension, so the Thalmor came up with another one.

That's not to say that the Thalmor didn't use knowledge passed down from Ayleid refugees that came to Summerset and Valenwood in the years after Alessia's rebellion. I am almost certain that the Thalmor are aware of the Towers and their importance (the reason they wanted Hammerfell so badly, in my opinion, is that having it would provide access to Iliac Bay and Adamantine Tower), but that doesn't necessarily make them descendents of the distant Ayleids. Obviously there's no proof to say that they are not, either, but I would be more inclined to accept the Fourth Era Thalmor as Altmer who, upon being forced to turn away from their Tower, found another (just as ancient) idea to replace it.

Also, I'd like to point out that there was an Ayleid who returned to Tamriel through metaphysical means: Umaril. When I first read the Intercepts, I admit that I thought it was written to reference Knights of the Nine as opposed to the main quest of Oblivion. While I assume that my first impression was wrong, no one has come out and specifically told me so yet.

I thought the whole "return of the Ayleids" thing was a pointer to Knights of the Nine, you know, where the Alyeid King Umrail tried to come back and take over cyrodiil.

Well [censored], I didn't play Knights of the Nine yet lol. It came out after I dumped hundreds of hours into Oblivion, and then when Shivering Isles released I put like another 40 hours into that, then was too burnt out to start on KoN and forgot about it.

But, from what I just read, its just one Ayleid? I mean, does that already take care of the "Ayleids are returning" phrase? The Intercepts make the Ayleids out to be a huge threat, and they also suggest that the whole Oblivion Crisis was orchestrated by the Ayleids in the first place.

It's one Alyeid, the Alyeid King that Pelinal himself fought, and struck down, in white-gold tower during Alessia's rebellion.

Also, I dont see where they suggest that the Oblivion crisis was cuased by the Alyeids, only that they built some stupidly powerful tower, even by tower standards, becuase it mimiced the wheel.

To me, these quotes paint the Ayleids out to be more of a threat then what we've been let in on. And Oblivion, KoN or otherwise, didn't really seem to deal with Ayleids or their plans for White-Gold at all.

Well Kirkbride is not the end all be all source of ES story progression, he did imply once that the Redron were entierly wiped out by the Daedra during the Oblivion, and we know that to not be true because of Dragonborn.

But that would imply that the Loveletter and the Hunt for Amaranth are not canon either. Or that they have the possibility of not being canon.

Obviously. We never did find out what would happen if they plucked the string.

No, it just means THAT PART of the Intercepts, the part of the alyeids being behind everything, isn't canon.

The world would echo back. Probably causeing destruction unfathomable. I imagine something like this https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I3BxvHhz4XQ but on a planet-wide scale.

We already know it has the power to stop Mundus from falling into Oblivion, the thing is stupidly overpowered.

It is there, but it is sideways.
You cant see the Ayleid invasion if it looks like dragons are coming back.

Same logic I could say, "That part of the Loveletter isn't canon."

At some point we have to just speculate, until its either proven wrong or right by Bethesda themselves. It would be nice if MK would let us know with each text how seriously Bethesda is taking it, so we know which ones are mostly fan-fic and which others are embedded in the story.

I doubt MK himself knows to what degree Bethesda plans to use his stuff.

And knowing Bethesda they will be cryptically vauge on the matter.

Just like us, he writes for fun first and foremost, and to expand his vision of Tamriel. He's as surprised and pleased as anyone else when his writings make their way into the games (I seem to remember the White-Gold Concordat being an example of this).

I don't think it's that simple. Since MK helped work on the lore during Redguard/Morrowind, he has insight into things only the other devs would know. However this story they're telling isn't static, so certain key points MK knows of may or may not be altered (or skipped entirely) if the devs decide to do something different by the time they would become relevant. It doesn't appear as though he knows about changes being made since his tenure there, so I don't think even he knows what still applies and in what way.

However, that doesn't stop us from speculating, and figuring out what works best.

I really really hope the developers take the Loveletter from the Fifth Era seriously.

Isn't MK friends with Kurt Kuhlmann AKA the co-lead designer of Skyrim this time around? You would think that'd give him some insight. I could be completely and utterly wrong, though. I don't know much about MK outside of what I've seen him write and his time at Bethesda.

Am I the only one that automatically assumed that the Thalmor are ideologically Ayleid from the beginning? I can't remember the quote, but somewhere in Nu-Mantia it says that when the Ayleids return they won't be racially Ayleids.

I think you are misremembering the quote that said that most "Alyeids" were more focused on wordly needs rather then the whole tower/doom thing, and that the term "Alyeid" often refered to the more evil/doom focused Alyieds, and other forces.

I was actually basing my opinion off

I just sort of assumed that either the Thalmor are linked to the conspiracy or have a shared ideology.

Ah…?
YR says this also…
1. "Does anyone on the Thalmor know what the humans are talking about?"
Father, blessed be his name's numeric mystery, was one of the few on the Thalmor to oppose Andel Crodo's
but I urge you to overlook our personal disagreements and to relay my findings to the full Council.

Yes, YR seems to be banned, but his father, grand-father and uncle was members of the Thalmor Council…




an ayleidoon hegemony nearing another unceremonious end. — http://www.imperial-library.info/content/kinmune…
Another end…? Like the end at 1E482…? (Glenumbra)

Originally, I thought the "Ayleid" threat was referring to Mankar Camoran, since it was implied he was a descendant of an Ayleid royal family that assimilated into the Camoran Dynasty....as well as others like Umaril the Unfeathered and Umbacano, all with implied/stated Ayleid ancestry. That the Thalmor may be composed of Ayleids seem plausible as well given their exile to Valenwood, though it would seem the current Thalmor extremism is something that only came up after the Siege of Alinor.

I like the idea of an Ayleid sleeper cell that knew the only way to counter the Empire's strength was to orchestrate an Oblivion Crisis and then usurp power from Summerset lol. Gives the TES universe a new political spin on things.

I definitely think that Ayleid=Thalmor.

So ya, we saw their return. But it wasn't in the same form, as we were told it wouldn't be.