How long do you think it will be until the empire collapses and falls in to disarray? They came close to it when the IC was taken, but what are your thoughts?

Now then, no swearing and flaming. We want a nice clean game. Also, let's not turn this in to Nords vs Imperials k?

It will collapse at the end of the Great War 2.... or before it.

It will probably depend on the outcome of the second war with the Dominion, however my personal opinion is that the Empire will be reshaped, and contains only human based provinces except Hammerfell.

I'm hoping they will last long enough to see the Thalmor defeated.

Having in mind the leadership level of the Empire (both by his actions fault and because of the already segregated provinces), and the general trust to it is next to 0, I'd say they'll crumble even before the next war.

Besides, if the Stormcloaks win is canon, the Empire pretty much doesn't already exists. It's only Cyrodiil (and who knows what those High Rock bretons will be up to...). A quick resumee, ok?

- Morrowind: Destroyed. Also segregated? (don't remember, quite possible).

- Black Marsh: Segregated.

- Elsweyr: Mostly Thalmor territory.

- Valenwood: Same.

- Hammerfell: Segregated.

- Skyrim: Segregated.

- Summerset Isles: ...ajem...

- High Rock: ?

ohh awesome idea what idsthe next tes is with the great war 2 and the fall of the empire?

If Empire holds on to Skyrim, it can last indefinitely.

If it loses Skyrim, I don't think it will ever cease to be nominally an Empire but it will certainly lose its authority over Tamriel very soon after WW2.

We'll have to wait and see after Great War 2

We can't really say, if it loses skyrim then it'll lose authority over another province but I doubt it'll cause the downfall, Alessia's empire only consisted of Cyrodiil so it's possible the empire stays intact and it's possible the empire could take back skyrim through warfare, it probably has a large loyal nord populace among it's soldiers since the Nords were always in the legions.

Well given the trend of a major catastrophe occurring after the end of the past games (red year after Morrowind, collapse of the empire after Oblivion) I'd expect another disaster after the end of Skyrim. Also, given the devs history of allowing all player faction outcomes to be canon (warp in the west) its likely the next disaster will render the outcome of the skyrim civil war irrelevant. An obvious way of doing this is having the second great war overrun all of Tamriel, destroying the 3rd empire. Whether or not a 4th empire rebuilds itself from the ruins remains to be seen.

Well the fall of the septims and the red year were predictable, especially since Vivec foretells of the falling of Lie Rock (ministry of truth) in his 36 lessons.

I'm not saying they weren't forshadowed in the games or came out of nowhwere, just that the devs used those events to reshape the political landscape after each game. And Skyrim does strongly forshadow an imminent second Thalmor invasion.

Actually it shows it the other way around, the Cyrodiilic empire is planning on a counter attack on the Dominion, what the game foreshadows is another great war, not necessarily the Thalmor launching another invasion.

Not sure how long it'll last, but I think it is in the stages of its end as a multinational entity. Fall of the Septims, the banning of Talos, the rise of the Dominion, losing Hammerfell and now a civil war in Skyrim, their most important province(not to mention some less than favorable developments in one of the storylines in Skyrim). I don't see it hanging on very much longer.

Well we have to take into consideration that skyrim won't be entering into an age of peace at all if either side wins, there are still empire and stormcloak supporting citizens that can end up revolting, and we have possible riots happening in Windhelm due to the supposed racial tension and the segregation of argonian citizens not to mention how they are treated no better than slaves, we also have a more driven forsworn force in markarth due to what happens during the forsworn conspiracy (both endings of the quest could lead the forsworn into a more driven force.)

Honestly no matter what there are going to be complications in skyrim that will lead to either a weakened nord nation or one of the empire's provinces dealing with a lot of internal struggle. But if skyrim is independent these events could weaken it to the point that retaking skyrim wouldn't be all that complicated for the empire due to the strife and we still have a lot of influential Jarls and powerful figures that support the empire like Balgruuf and Maven.