Which army in all of Tamriel is the most experienced, trained, disciplined, equiped, generals, and overall military power?

I think it is either the Imperial Legion or the Aldmeri Dominion military.

Hmmm...the Aldmer have powerful dawn magic

The Legion has regiment and superior manpower (pre Great War at least).

The armies are pretty evenly matched. The Thalmor know that and are trying to weaken all their possible enemies by pitting them against each other, before the Second Great War.

hrmm....good question. I get a feeling with the Thalmor being pushed off Tamriel, they're not that powerful anymore, and are relying on keeping the other side weak. They also do not have the support of the Psijics, so there's no more ultra powerful mages protecting them anymore.

I'm going to say the Empire, and they would have won the civil war, if all resources were pooled into taking back Skyrim. However, that'd end up really weakening the Empire.

Is it ever suggested that the Psijics supported the Thalmor at any point? I got the impression that they had no involvement in anything surrounding recent events; granted, I only played the game for a few weeks so I might have missed something.

I'm probably forgetting things here, but I vaguely recall the Psijics foiling all of Tibers attempts to attack Summerset before Numidium.

Psijics hate the Thalmor. Them taking control of Alinor led them to moving the island they live on to [[Somewhere else]]. Where is unknown.

That was what I was getting at with my Psijic post. Heck, the Psijics, pretty much, foiled most attacks against Summerset Ilse till Tiber came knocking with the Numidium. However, in the College of Winterhold quest line, it's plainly clear the Thalmor have branded the Psijics as rogue mages, and a Psijics ends up intervening to help the PC stop the Thalmor agent at the college.

So yeah, there isn't any love between the two groups, and the Psijics have disappeared into who knows where.

It's because they are so opposed in mindset.

The Psijics want to take ascend past the Mundus to escape it.
The Thalmor want to go the opposite way, by tearing it down.

Old argument, ignite!

Ending the occupation of your own lands in no way makes you stronger than the former occupier. To end an occupation, one need only make the occupation unworthy of the occupiers investment. No actual over-powering (or even threat of over-powering) is necessary. Vietnam has never been stronger than the United States. Furthermore, in a defensive campaign (like northern Cyrodiil & early Hammerfell) one has the advantage of short-to-non-existent supply lines, friendly locals, knowledge of the land, and increased morale. In an insurgency, non-military factors can play a huge role (civic disobedience, for example), and many who would never fight in a war will raise arms to defend what is theirs. Finally, in an insurgency scenario (like Hammerfell) the enemy's military resources are being diverted into non-military duties, such as policing and civil administration. That the Dominion failed to conquer half of the Empire's territory all at once does not at all imply that their army was weaker.

Furthermore, when one looks at the results of the war, things clearly favor the Dominion. The Dominion achieved the following:

• Complete eradication of all blades agents on Alinor.
  
• Devastation to southern Hammerfell and parts of Cyrodiil (such as Braviil)
  
• The near elimination of the Dark Brotherhood
  
• Destruction of several legions, plus provincial forces
  
• Whatever they wanted to do in southern Hammerfell (may have only been partially accomplished)
  
• The splintering of the Empire
  
• Diplomatic immunity for their spies and assassins
  
• The destruction of open Talos worshiping, including the assassination of proven Talos worshipers.
  
• Great public embarrassment and shame for the Empire.

The empire achieved the following:

• A return to the territorial status quo
  
• The destruction of some Dominion forces (iirc the lost forces are most likely approximately equal on both sides)

It looks to me like the Dominion comes out ahead, though neither side is in a state to defeat the other.

Still, they lost their entire main army
"In the end, the main Aldmeri army in Cyrodiil was completely destroyed. "

Plus, ;"In the end, the heroic Redguards fought the Aldmeri Dominion to a standstill, although the war lasted for five more years and left southern Hammerfell devastated"

That means they must be really weakened.

Still, the war was on imperial territory, and much of it was devastated (even the imperial city itself was sacked), so I assume 25 (?) years later the empire is still in a process of rebuilding itself.

On the other hand, Altmer population is very slow to grow, so their losses may be more severe. (although, again, we don't know how much of their armies included bosmer and khajiit)

Main problem. Thalmor got boots on the ground across the empire. Thats usually a bad thing when you know you're going to come to blows again sooner or later.

The Aldmeri also has a formidable navy, so Cyrodiil wouldn't be able to take the offensive and hit Alinor.

Do the Psijics have enough power to be a threat to either the Thalmor or the Empire on their own?

I don't know. I tend to agree with Hellmouth. It does seem like that Thalmor power is waxing rather than waning. I doubt the few gains they have made were really worth the tragic and humiliating disaster they experienced of gaining and subsequently losing all their military conquests.

But the Thalmor are like the Hist in the sense that they can play a longer game than their human counterparts. Perhaps the war was a whole ruse just to divide the Empire. But I really doubt it.

Psjics aren't to be trifled with, that much is certain. A threat to either side? They normally tend to keep to themselves, its only when/if someone can manage to harm them/the world at large would they be poised to intervene. Even then, they hardly did it on a personal level during the events at Winterhold.

Due to their policy of non-intervention we've seen very little of the Psijic's potential displayed, therefore we're really not sure what the group is fully capable of.

Their main army in Cyrodiil. We know that they had at least one other approximately equal sized force (Hammerfel), and the Cyrodiilic army was likely the smaller of the two, since it was initially only meant to serve as a distraction. And before that, the Dominion had destroyed several legions entirely, and all the remainder were at least reduced by half.

I'm just gonna copy + paste here, then trim down the irrelavent bits:

Ending the occupation of your own lands in no way makes you stronger than the former occupier. To end an occupation, one need only make the occupation unworthy of the occupiers investment. No actual over-powering (or even threat of over-powering) is necessary. Vietnam has never been stronger than the United States. Furthermore, when on the defensive one has the advantage of short-to-none-existent supply lines, friendly locals, knowledge of the land, and increased morale. In an insurgency, non-military factors can play a huge role (civic disobedience, for example), and many who would never fight in a war will raise arms to defend what is theirs. Finally, in an insurgency scenario (like Hammerfell) the enemy's military resources are being diverted into non-military duties, such as policing and civil administration. That the Dominion failed to conquer half of the Empire's territory all at once does not at all imply that their army was weaker.

Ok, this is an obscure piece of lore (it comes from a piece of Morrowind Dialogue, iirc), but the elves are conditionally fertile. When population is high, it becomes harder for them to breed. When it's low, it becomes easier. If they suffered a significant demographic loss (which is really unlikely to begin with), they'd be able to rebound as fast as men.


How are you getting the idea that the Great War was humiliating for the Dominion? What disaster did they experience? A failed conquest is hardly a disaster, especially when you're able to end things on your own terms (literally), withdraw much of your army, and gave better than you got. Remember, both sides lost armed forces. Only one side suffered severe damage to their civilian economy and liveliehood, was forced to alienate a powerful religious faction, gave up control of ~1/4 its land, and allowed the indignity of enemy operatives traveling freely within their sovereign territory with the power to legally execute their citizens.

That last one really cannot be stressed enough. The only real-world comparison I can think of for the Thalmor Justicars doing what they're doing in a sovereign nation is the modern day US-led coalition occupation of Iraq and Afghanistan*. As far as I am aware, there is no case prior to this in which one nation has, as an article of it's peace treaty, allowed agents of another government to freely operate within it's borders with permission to seek out kill that nation's citizens. Even in that situation, the governments of Iraq and Afghanistan both actually want the people Coalition forces are killing to die. The Empire most certainly doesn't. This just isn't something you see normally. It's a huge embarrassment for the Empire. Arguably, the main reason anyone ever has faith in their government is because they believe it to be capable of protecting their right to life. The Empire has, by allowing the Thalmor to legally kill its citizens, publicly admitted that they are unwilling and / or incapable of fully protecting that right.

*Seriously, this isn't meant as a political statement of any sort, and please don't take it as such.

^^^^
EDIT: Regardless of your intentions, this is not the place to discuss such things. You made a statement about politics. It is a political statement. It is now open for all to see, and all to yell at you for, whether its true or not. Saying 'please' doesn't change anything. Your statement was presented as absolute fact, and that is going to upset people.

Argonia, me thinks. The Stormcloaks are a rag-tag bunch of pissed off Nords (not that pissed off Nords aren't effective), its unlikely Morrowind has anything beyond city guards, the Empire is weak from the Great War, and the Dominion is spending resources as we speak, and has made enemies out of the majority of Tamriel. Argonia has the loot from the sacking of Morrowind (nothing has happened sense then that would have caused them to lose it), psychic tree generals, and is not currently in a any kind of conflict.

It was most certainly a humiliating defeat. They had taken (correct me if I'm wrong with any of these) Rihad, Taneth, Skaven, Anvil, Leyawiin, Bravil, and the Imperial City. That's The Imperial City. An astounding achievement. And they lost it all in a manner of weeks. The Dominion's military was probably beyond humiliated with their inability to accomplish anything, a feeling that was probably compounded by their loss of Hammerfell months later. And that was a Redguard victory without any Imperial support.

Sure, they managed to divide Hammerfell from the Empire (though that was far from the original intent). And, sure, they managed to get one of the things they originally desired from the Concordat - the infiltration of their agents throughout the Empire to persecute Talos worshipers and humiliate the Empire by doing so. But this was a pre-war demand. And while certainly such demands were meant to provoke war, they're far-cry from the gains they made during the war. That is, the almost complete subjugation of Cyrodiil and Hammerfell. And if we're using real-life comparisons, the Dominion was living in a bubble that popped, and as a result they fell faster than U.S. home prices (zing!).

If anything, the Concordat was the achievement of the Thalmor's ambassadors (an entirely un-glorious and disrespected branch of the Altmeri government, if YR is to be believed) as they were able to let the Dominion save face. Still, while the current concessions might seem great, its quite far from the position they held at the height of the conflict.

Perhaps you and I just have very different standards for embarrassment, and defeat. The Dominion didn't lose anything. They simply didn't gain anything. I wouldn't consider that embarrassing. Consider Linsanity. For a short while, Jeremy Lin stole something amazing from the rest of the NBA - the media spotlight. He went from not having it at all, to dominating it, to barely ever receiving it again. Was this embarrassing for him? No. For the remainder of Jeremy Lin's life, he'll look back to that brief conquest with pride, thinking, "hell yeah, I was on fire! It was awesome, too bad I couldn't make it last, I guess I'll just have to keep on trying to get a little bit of that back."

Second, you're time scale is completely off. They held Leyawiin and Braviil from 4E 172 on, acquired the Imperial City in 174, and lost the IC in 175. They hardly lost it in "a matter of weeks." And they withdrew from Hammerfell after five years, not "months".

Finally, they have no reason to be "beyond humiliated with their inability to accomplish anything" since they did, in fact, accomplish a great deal. They successfully committed "all manner of atrocities" against the people of the Imperial City (which most likely means far more than just killing people for the evulz), they devastated occupied regions, they exercised sufficient controlover their occupied territories to almost completely eradicate the Dark Brotherhood (something other agencies must have tried and failed to do before), gained political leverage sufficient to obtain the Emperor's compliance with the White-Gold Concordat, and did who knows what else while occupying Cyrodiil. That's a whole lot more than is accomplished in the majority of wars.


They also caused unilateral domestic economic devastation, but that's just a detail. The big picture is this: sure, the Thalmor didn't get absolutely everything they ever could of wanted from the war, but they still came out ahead both in absolute and relative (to the Empire) terms. You can win the lottery without getting the jackpot, and it still counts as winning.

That's just a really poor metaphor. Tamriel is pre-speculative markets, AFAIK. But it would be awesome if Alinor wasn't, and there had been a sort of South Sea Company type financial crisis after the Battle of the Red Ring. However, it's incredibly unlikely that anything like that happened.

The Author of The Great War, an important general who served in the conflict, disagrees with you on who deserves credit for securing the Concordat for the Empire.

Also, yet again, a hill may not be a mountain, but it's still a finely elevated place to stand. Total victory isn't the only way to come out ahead.

The Empire is stretched thin, and is facing trouble, especially after the Great War.

Skyrim has finished their own Civil War (in some cases), so they're still recovering from those wounds.

Hammerfell has successfully dispelled the Dominion from their territory, so they may be doing fine.

The Argonian States have taken Morrowind. That says nothing about there power, as they took it without resistance. The Dunmer were taken by surprise, and Vvardenfall was destroyed (in a sense).

The Dominion on the other-hand may be doing like the Empire. They might have gashes from the First Great War.

While they did invade Morrowind, there is little to suggest that the conquered substantial portions of it, and it is officially considered part of the empire. However, they clearly are a forced to be reckoned with, considering how well they handled the Oblivion Crisis.

That would make no sense, considering that the Great War in-game book, written by a high-ranking general, makes no mentions of any offensive action taken by the Empire against the Dominion.

Quit thinking like this is all being played out as a game of chess. If you can consider it in real socio-political terms, then we have a discussion that can be continued.

I might elaborate on this tomorrow.

Look at it strategically for a second. The Thalmor may not have won land that they would have liked to have, the land around the Illiac Bay, but that was not because of the Empire that was because of the Redguards. This should not hurt the Thalmor war effort, or the countries strong feelings. It can still be considered a victory if you explain it right and it seems to me that the Thalmor love to explain it right. Cyrodiil didn't start out as a important part of the war either, it only became important when it looked to the Thalmor like they could end the complete war easily.

A mistake on their side, certainly but something that showed their power all the same. A bit of good propaganda which the Thalmor excel in (see the Void Nights and the Oblivion crisis for examples) and the people would love their actions and ignore their defeats.

The Thalmor can still explain the war to everybody in positive terms, yet the best the Empire can claim is fighting the Thalmor to a stand still and a status quo in lands... Except for the fact that they lost Hammerfell of course.

Strategically speaking the Thalmor are also in a far better situation. If Skyrim is not firmly under Imperial control then there is no direct route between Cyrodiil and High Rock that the Empire can use. High Rock is weak, Wayrest was sacked by Corsairs just a few years earlier a strong Thalmor fleet could theoratically stop all contact between two of the Empires provinces in a new war.

Thalmor agents are walking around everywhere, they are arresting and executing people as they see fit.

Talos worship is outlawed.

The Empire lost one of their provinces & one of their best fighting forces

The Empire likely suffered economically for a few years, though they could be back on their feet by now

There is a civil war in Skyrim

Of course the Thalmor suffered heavily for these victories, but they can claim victory easily and they will and should and they will be right and people will believe them.

I am. And in real terms, the Thalmor went in, ravaged their enemies, suffered no damage to their holdings, got everything they asked for to start with, and then later decided Hammerfell wasn't worth the hassle. In real world, that's not called an embarrassing defeat, by any stretch of the imagination. They currently have armed forces, boots on the ground, walking around openly executing civiliansin the Empire's sovereign territory. The citizens of the Empire are continually shown throughout Skyrim to take a dark view of the Great War's outcome. They use that darkness for strength, they use it to steel themselves, and they're determined, but they don't think of their own victory as having embarrassed the Thalmor. Every Thalmor agent we meet is self-assured and confident. The journal you find in the MQ describing their view of the civil war shows that they still hold a distinctly smug, superior, and manipulative view of the mannish empire. The non-Altmer ex-pats of the Dominion express genuine fear and hatred of the Thalmor. Nobody, not a single effin' character in the game (as far as I've seen), treats the Dominion War machine like it's been embarrassed. They hate it, several of them think they can beat it, but none of them express a sentiment that the Great War was an embarrassment for the Dominion.

• In terms of mechanical capacity to wage war, the Dominion made clear relative gains through the rauaging of imperial territories.
  
• In terms of prestige, the Dominion proved for the first time since Topal's age that they are capable of launching a successful military invasion of mainland Tamriel. In doing so, they forced the Empire to capitulate to their terms and sacrifice the sovereignty of their land - which absolutely is a huge embarrassment to them.
  
• In terms of politics, they've sown wide-spread dissent among the lands of man, splintering the empire, turning sons of Skyrim against eachother. In the twenty-five years since the war ended, we've heard of no such internal conflict (meaning no actual civil wars or secessions) within the Dominion.
  
• In terms of domestic morale, they've certainly given the men good reason to fight, but they've greatly diminished the desire to fight for anyone. They have a cause, but no clear leader. The Dominion, on the other hand, has tasted blood. Many in the Dominion have literally waited centuries for this. It's been ~ 600 years since the indignity of the Numidium's invasion. 400 of that was spent under the yoke of a "lesser being." That hatred built up within golden-skinned sorcerors for centuries, but they had to keep it down. They had to suppress it. Eventually, it may have seemed to some of them that the hate was gone. That they were truly calm. That they were alright with what happened. Now, after reveling in the blood of the enemy? All such doubts are cast aside. The hate machine is hungry.
  
• The one place where I can see genuine loss for the Dominion is that their sense of "inevitability" has gone away. First they took Alinor, then Valenwood, then Elswyr, all without a hitch. Now? They've faced their first set back, and while the defining character trait of the Altmer will keep them from caring (they'll keep thinking they're perfect and unstoppable), and 25 years of history show that this setback hasn't thrown their territorial acquisition in reverse, this is one tool they've lost, and lost forever.

If I sound snippy, I apologize. I know I tend to do that about this topic for some reason, and I'm kinda sleep deprived at the moment (come to think about it, so was I the last time I got into it about the great war. Skyrim eats away at my nights). I really genuinely don't mean to be dismissive, and I wouldn't be at all surprised if you had a valid point about some social or political aspect of this war that I'm just missing. If anything, I'm just frustrated that I can't seem to see what several other users seem to be seeing.

If the Argonians organised properly my money would be on them.