He wasn't warning of the Red Year though. He wanted people to commit suicide so that the Dunmer people could call on an even greater body of Ancestors when the Oblivion Crisis occured. He ranted about the Daedra attacking.
Very interestingly, it's clear that this bit of foreshadowing for TES IV was placed into the
Tribunal expansion on purpose, since the writing work had already begun for
Oblivion when development on
Tribunal got underway (circa late 2002).
Also, information about TESV revealed that there is a sizeable amount of Dunmer who have taken up refuge in Skyrim by the time TESV begins, and they have apparently built their own city there (as was revealed by a French magazine's coverage).
It's supposedly near the old border of Morrowind, according to the TES Wiki.
The prospect of actually getting some Dunmer architecture in the new game? Hells yes, says I.
how could the Dark Elves not unite and make a stand somewhere? surely they could have stopped the argonians at some point instead of moving to solsthseim and skyrim? i am buying the book sometime soon so can any one explain why the Dunmer didnt make a stand? Why the hell they chose Nordic like areas to flee?
As noted in the novel, the Dunmer had basically just gotten the living crap kicked out of them, as a result of the Ministry's fall, the eruption of Red Mountain, as well as the recent Dagoth Ur uprising and Oblivion/Nord crises. By the time the Argonians invaded southern Morrowind, they were scattered and disparate, and in no real shape to mount a coordinated defense of their homeland.
I'm looking forward to finding out too. Hopefully there will be in-game books in "Skyrim" that tell more. But think of it this way: the Nords are a proud people who love life -- they're probably big-hearted. How do you think someone like that reacts when faced with refugees who have lost most of their family and friends as well as much of their culture? The Nords are big enough to extend a helping hand instead of rehashing old quarrels. Or at least I hope Bethesda will portray them this way.
I'm busy holding out the hope that we'll be seeing some meaty in-game references to not only the Red Year and the circumstances surrounding the diaspora of the entire Dunmer civilization, but also to stuff like the Umbriel Crisis and the other events from Greg Keyes' novels.
It's extremely likely, given both the separate timeframes between his books and TES V, as well as the fact that Bethesda seem to be a pretty out-of-game-lore-friendly company. Keyes has mentioned that he worked closely with Pete Hines and Todd Howard on the books, which bodes well for reciprocal referencing within the games themselves.