99% of the thalmor, maybe, but entire races aren't in such lock-step with each other. There are probably plenty of Altmer who the thalmor would consider deviant in places like High Rock, Cyrodiil, or other provinces, with Thalmor repression keeping it down in the Isles. (But with a certain degree of human fetishes among the populace)

Honestly, that would be the cheesiest thing the devs could do. "The Thalmor made a mistake by underestimating the Empire *gasp* but no worries, we'll just grow babies with unknown Dawn Magic". The Thalmor may be master planners, but that doesn't excuse them for underestimating their enemy, which you can't deny, the Altmer instinctively believe themselves better than everyone anyway. The Altmer can fall prey to bad mistakes just as any other people, perhaps they were just over confident. As for the pre-dawn magick stuffs, theres no proof they 'edited' mundus assuming your referring to the moons disappearing, they just took the credit for it, likely realizing just how much an effect it would have on the Khajjit.

If they are master planners, which they are, and they did have a massive spy network all across the empire, which they did, how could they overlook the most simple and vital aspect of warfare; how many divisions the enemy has and where they are located? The Thalmor knew just what they were going up against. It makes no sense whatsoever to assume they were going for the kill with the Empire. That is impossible for them. The ultimatum they delivered at the start of the war was all they ever wanted, and they got it. They planned precisely within their ability, and got it.

Because, like I said, they are just as prone to overestimating and making mistakes as everyone else. Even the best layed plans can be overturned. The Thalmor got squat from the War with the Empire, they wasted manpower and materiels in a brutal, bloody war in which they were turned back. They got the worship of Talos banned, but its obviously not working to the extent they want, the blades disbanded and the territory they asked for they were kicked out of by the Raga. It makes no sense whatever to assume that they got everything they wanted, when they didn't.

Edit: Recap: I fail to see the pure win everyone thinks the Thalmor got. Talos worship hasn't stopped entirely, the land they asked for in the ultimatum (which is just a reason to go to war, in which I think they knew it wouldn't be accepted. They wanted war from the looks of it) and the land they wanted they couldn't hold.

They got everything but southern Hammerfell, and they got a bonus "mess up southern Cyrodiil." They didn't get exactly what they wanted, but they got nearly the equivalent.

If anything this was a Pyrric Victory for the Dominion. They wanted a war, hell they unloaded a cart load of heads in front of the Imperial City and demanded religious and territorial concessions from the Empire that they knew wouldn't be accepted and used it as reason to go to war where they met amazing initial success but were then driven back. In the end, it was the Dominion who sued for peace and the Empire who accepted it, but at a cost so great to both sides its a hard sell to think the Dominion truly won anything.

What cost did the Thalmor pay?

Thalmor losses: Lord LongnamestartingwithaN and the forces he was using to guard the IC, plus some normal losses at every battle.

Imperial losses: Southern Hammerfell was devastated. Southern Cyrodiil was devastated. The eighth legion (or possible eight legions. There are some typos) were completely destroyed, and no suriving legion has more than half of its men in fighting shape. Also, they're paying the cost of the Concordat.

Their ultimate goal is the removal of Talos (check) and the dissolution of the mortal realm. Lives lost don't really matter, since those souls will also be 'saved' when they succeed in freeing themselves from Mundus.

So you believe that the Dominion's manpower drain was signifcantly less than that of the Empires? I'd find it hard to believe that the Empire suffered such great losses and the Dominion didn't in terms of manpower. The Dominon would have had to be funneling supplies, materieal and reinforcement to those deployed in Cyrodiil and Hammerfell. Their man power would have to be drained.



They didn't remove Talos, they got him banned, but hes still being worshiped. Lives do matter in the short term if they aren't successful in their goals at first. If they don't succeed in their mythic approach then those lives lost are just manpower who can't defend their efforts.

Absolutely, lives were lost. I accounted for that. I called it normal battle losses. And sure, they had to pay for the war, but so did the Empire. All the Thalmor losses were mirrored by the empire, but the reverse isn't true. The Thalmor absolutely fricked up the territory they occupied. They did real damage to the realms of man. The empire did nothing of the sort to the elves.



They got him banned, and while his faith hasn't just magically disappeared, its still fading. General Tulius (the head of all Imperial operations in Skyrim) is pretty fiercely anti-Talos, and he grew up before the ban. Sure, a lot of others keep their faith openly or secretely, but not as many as once did, and most of their kids aren't going to learn the faith.

I really don't think there were that many Altmer lives lost either. The most reasonable thing would be that Altmer acted as officers and elite troops, while Khajiit, Bosmer and Goblins filled the ranks.

It's also said in the book that the campaign in Cyrodiil was first meant only as a means to draw troops away from Hammerfell(which was the main target) but they got carried away by their initial successes and tried to destroy the Empire earlier than planned.

Apart from the ban of Talos worship, the Dominion did also remove Hammerfell from the Empire. And that is crucial. The Redguards are the finest warriors in all of Tamriel and did also manage to fight the Dominion to a standstill, singlehandedly. The Thalmor was propably quite happy about Hammerfell being independent again, even if they lost southern Hammerfell. Hell, it could've been the plan all along to give the conquered lands back to the Redguards just to make them think the Empire betrayed them.

Lands regrow, its not like they plowed the Imperial fields with salt like the Roman's did Carthage. Scorched earth is a [censored], but given time the land will return. By the sounds of the war, 'normal' battle losses weren't seen and I don't imagine the Empire taking heavy losses without returning the favor. While the lands of the Altmer may still be intact, their population would have taken a big enough hit that fielding army's again would take some time. Time spent for man to regain its strength. I have no doubt they [censored] man up pretty good, but I think the favor was returned in kind.



Alot can happen in the coming years, as we've already been shown. I wouldn't put Talos down for the count just yet.

Was their blood debt repaid in kind? Sure. Was it repaid in full? No. They just did more damage. Was any of it irreperable? Not really (there are some small exceptions, like what they did to the Dark Brotherhood), but if you got in a fight, got stabbed, punched the other guy really hard in the face, and then were told by a doctor that your stab wound would heal in time, you'd still admit that you got worse than you gave.



Neither do I. The war isn't over, but the battle was won.

This. Gawd, so much of This.

Good job on de-railing the thread, guys. :brokencomputer:

Complaining about derailment two days after the fact is hardly more constructive.

Want to re-rail the thread? It's really quite simple. Say something interesting about the original topic.

For example: can anyone imagine why it is that the dwemer, with all their robotic automatons, needed organic slaves? Nobody knows exactly how they produced their tech, right? Maybe it relied on more human elements than we currently realize. After thousands of years, maybe the fleshy covers of the centurions has simply faded away?

Indeed.
Grants more credibility to my theory that the goblins in Oblivion are degenerated Ayleid.

Musing on that theory gives a possible explanation for the obsession with racial purity that Altmer have.
They do not want to degenerate into Bosmer, or worse, goblins.

The point about organic slaves is worth pursuing, I think.

Based off of what we see in Morrowind, I'd like to think that slavery, or at least the 'lets violate an entire race' variety of it, was not a universal feature among the dwemer. The freeholds on Vvardenfell and the city beneath Mournhold lack the torture-devices found in in the holds connected to Blackreach (mind, what remains of the Vvardenfell freeholds is rather pithy.) Where the former ruins seem industrial and palacial, respectively, the latter seem more cosmopolitan, if more sinister. That, however, would raise the question of how united, divided, or stratified Dwemer society really was (the Rourken clan being a lovely example,) but that again wanders into largely speculative territory. The notion of the dwemer being divided along lines similar to the chimer Great Houses is amusing. Another point to consider in comparison is the relative age of the dwemer holds in what would become Resdayn; from the timeline linked here in the forums, I got the impression that they didn't predate the Velothi by all that much.

There's no mention in any of the texts before Skyrim of the dwemer keeping slaves; of course that doesn't mean that they -didn't- keep slaves on Vvardenfell or in Volenfell, but we have no reason to believe that they did, either. It could just as easily be the case that the enslavement of the Snow Elves was a crime of opportunity. You have a refugee population, you have a powerful mutagenic on hand, and your systems of morality and ethics are, to be polite, rather convoluted, even in comparison to the altmer.

Sorry for all the baseless speculation, but the falmer bombshell does make re-examining the dwemer ruins and representations in other games more interesting.