The Thalmor's vision of eternal life is not what it first appears to be. It is true that the destruction of the world will return all existence to that which it was before the trickery of Lorkhan. However, we will not gain any benefits from this. Quite to the contrary, our souls are likely to be feasted upon by the Daedra. In fact, we have recently obtained information suggesting that the Daedra want the world to be repeatedly created and destroyed so that they will have new sources of souls which they cannot produce themselves. The Thalmor will surely bring us to ruin if they play into the hands of the Daedra. We have abided their leadership of the Dominion long enough, and it is time we acted.

Henceforth we commit to the execution of Operation Finitum.

This operation is made possible by recent key developments:
- Sahashlaryon made a compact with Nocturnal to make another Gray Cowl, giving him the ability to do just about anything without even the Thalmor's bloodhounds knowing about it.
- Anasthelveled has been named Vice Chairman of the General Committee, which means that he is 4th-in-line for the title of General Secretary of the Thalmor and 2nd-in-line for the title of Chancellor of the Aldmeri Dominion. His military prowess during the war gives him valuable support amongst the general populace.
- Skyrim has been reunified, the Resistance is gaining ground, and the Empire is entering a state which not even the Thalmor could predict. Their scryers are therefore quite occupied.
- Our researchers have finally mastered the enchantment of uncertain certainty, which will prove useful for masking "the device."
- Potencano is rumored to have recently had a falling-out with the others of the upper echelon.

The plan is as follows:

1. Sahashlaryon will be appointed as a bodyguard to Anasthelveled. Some political connections will need to be flexed, but Anasthelveled's credentials should smooth things over.

2. Anasthelveled and Sahashlaryon will bring "the device" to the next General Secretariat of the Thalmor, where all of the targets will be present.

3. Sahashlaryon will quickly don the Gray Cowl and activate "the device". This should kill all of the targets. If this does not work, then Sahashlaryon ought to have sufficient skills to finish off the rest of the targets.

4. Sahashlaryon will then place "the device" in the hands of Potencano, remove the Gray Cowl, and declare Potencano to be the assassin. After all, was not Potencano infamous for contradicting the other Thalmor quite often during the war?

5. Anasthelveled will then consolidate our control over the government. Our first act shall be to attack the Empire, which will then break the White-Gold Concordat, freeing the Empire from its obligations.

6. I, Berion, will put on the Gray Cowl, write orders that will surely lose the war, then take it off again. The orders will be attributed to another Thalmor politician.

7. If the Thalmor are not discredited in the eyes of the public by this time, we will have to use "the other device," and we can blame the results on the Thalmor too.

(Resistance scribe's note: References to "the device" and "the other device" were the best translations we could get from our High Elf members. They may be phoenetic spellings of Dwemer terms.)

(Resistance officer's note: This paper is at least six months old. Considering that none of this has come to pass, we must assume they have failed. If we are lucky, though, we may be able to find one of the officers involved in this plot in our next jailbreak operation.)

Meh. This one's boring and unrealistic. Delete it and try again.

You do realize what this is based on...

No.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Valkyrie

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heinrich_Himmler#Peace_negotiations

Lest you continue to think the original post is "unrealistic." Call it boring if you wish, but "unrealistic" is too far.

It's not the idea of a plot to overthrow the Thalmor that's unrealistic; it's the [censored] second Grey Cowl. It would be fine if it were just the first Grey Cowl that they got a hold on somehow, but making another one seems really unlikely in my mind. And boring, because we don't need two of the same bloody Daedric artifact. Mind you, it would still be boring if you used the pre-existing Grey Cowl - mostly because that's a really powerful and well known thing. It should be used rarely in stuff like this, like most of the well-known artifacts. Having them plan a coup through other means would be much more interesting.

Hopefully that's a little clearer. And I'm not insulting you, here. I'm just saying what I think about the piece in the spirit of no-punches-pulled critique.

... I feel like I always need that disclaimer. Should put it in my sig.

Ya it seems a little out of Nocturnal's character to just hand her cowl out to some Thalmor dissident.

Everything has its price, and there are many things left unsaid in a simple plan... but I shall not develop this plot further.