This will be interesting.

Before I start, I would like a crystal clear explanation of the Thalmor's motives, to attack the empire, and destroy all beings in Tamriel except for themselves. I understand the war and all of that, (a little more explanation would be nice), but mainly I want a nice detailed description of their plot to become gods, or whatever it is.

Now on with the plan.

My friend says that the Thalmor are bound to win (he has some real strange thoughts floating around his brain), and he thinks that the empire has no chance.

I would like a list of points, not to use against him, (I can think of my own points in an argument/debate) but more reasons to believe that the Thalmor will not take over Tamriel and ascent to blah blah blah.

I've had a little think myself and I know that divines are real in the elder scrolls universe, so there's 9 people who help the empire and so (especially Talos).

What do you think?

A. The Thalmor are already overextending themselves (having some serious problems in Hammerfell). As we are all aware, it is one thing to have military superiority; quite another to be able to actually pacify a region.

B. In cases like Skyrim, they would literally have to purge man from the Mythic (far easier said than done, see previous). Nords would quite possibly fight to the last woman and child, given their past with the Aldmer/their culture.

C. If you take the "911st Cow" seriously, the Greybeards have the power to call back the ghost of Shor into the world.

D. With Skyrim united again after the civil war, Snow Throat should be active.

Just a few off the top of my head.

Noob responses, I'm no Lore Buff yet, I'm trying to get there though

What do you mean by overextending, and what does Hammerfell have to do with this?

:S

And that's a relief (B).

911st Cow? :/

And what's the Snow Throat?

Also, any kind of map to show the current state of the war?

I'll get to organising my map library tonight.

"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. The Redguards say that this proves that they White-Gold Concordat was unnecessary, and that if Titus II had kept his nerve, the Aldmeri could have been truly defeated by the combined forces of Hammerfell and the rest of the Empire. " - The Great War

The Thalmor have been heavily weakened, and effectively fought to a standstill in both Hammerfell and Cyrodiil. Hence the subterfuge campaign in Skyrim. Nonetheless, the idea that they will have the strength/manpower to effectively occupy anymore territory, at least in the near term, is a stretch at best.



"And Dagon knew that where the horn soundings landed, the Tongues of High Hrothgar could step, and, when together, the greybeards could breathe unto being the ghost of Shor, which lay all Powers low [even in half-death]." - 911th Cow, Michael Kirkbride, Obscure Texts



The Snow Throat tower (High Hrothgar) is one of the last active Merethic-Era reality-bending, barrier-maintaining constructs left over, after the events of Red Year and the Oblivion Crisis. White Gold Tower in Cyrodiil, for instance, had much to do with the success of the Empire in the 1st and 3rd Eras. For a lot of information on the towers, see: http://www.imperial-library.info/content/nu-mantia-intercept

As for a map... looks like there are a few floating around. Here's one, for instance: http://i.imgur.com/HH1St.jpg

Is that map fairly correct?

And thanks for the info!

What the map should get across most of all is that the Empire still has more territory than the Dominion (even if Skyrim secedes).

The Altmer may have momentum, but needless to say, we've still got a long way to go before they are in any position to wipe Man from the world. Lots can happen.

I think the most obvious reason that the Thalmor will not succeed in their ultimate goal of wiping out all mankind, destroying the physical world of Tamriel, and ascending to to godhood, would simply be the fact that that would prevent any future Elder Scrolls games. Who wants to play an RPG involving bodiless immortal spirits in a noncorporeal world? :biggrin:

I realise you are looking more for tactical reasons regarding the Thalmor armies and tactics, etc., but the fact is that the Elder Scrolls games are made by humans for humans to play, and I highly doubt that Bethesda will choose to end their series with the destruction of all mankind in-game so that a kingdom of elves can become gods.

This is just my personal opinion, but I think the point of the breakdown of the Empire is just so that it will be more epic when the Empire is re-formed and brought back to full strength in future games.

They don't want to destroy all beings in Tamriel except themselves. In one way, they don't even want to destroy any men. In another, they want to destroy themselves. The Thalmor believe (rightly so, from what we can tell) that before the start of the world as we know it, everyone lived as these cool immortal spirits, then Lorkhan (aka Shor) came around and got everyone to become mortal and vulnerable. Every death (which is really like amnesia of the soul), every sickness, and every bad thing in the world can be blamed on him. The Thalmor choose to take that path, and blame everything on Lorkhan. Since Talos mantled (fused with) Lorkhan, they hate him, and since men support Lorkhan, they hate them too. However, the Thalmor want to return everyone to immortality. They plan on fully dismantling the world as we know it, completely getting rid of death. When they do this, there will be no men or elves, only spirits. They then want to make sure that nobody can ever be trapped by mortality again. Accomplishing this goal will be a highly complicated process, involving, among other things, the shaping of beliefs.





As has been said, they almost definitely can't win until the end of the last game, because TES VI: Fluffy White Clouds would make for a terrible videogame.
The Eight divines probably will be as much help to the AD as they will be to the empire. This isn't completely true (Kynerath loves the Nords, while Arkay seems to favor Mer) but it isn't completely false either.
The Psijiics (ultra-powerful wizards who do things like teleport entire islands around) are anti-Thalmor
They don't exactly have 100% approval ratings in their homeland
Their enemies have more territory than they do
They might have more to contend with than just the other Tamrielic powers. The Tsaesci, and Maomer have good reason to want to see the Thalmor fail
They're fighting uphill. They want to fundamentally alter the world. Their enemies just want to keep things the same. The status quo is fighting against them
The Daedric princes might not like the idea of their playground getting destroyed.

The Thalmor could win, but they also could lose.

All this scrying gives me a headache, I know it's tempting, but the Thalmor's fate needs patience to understand. And I sincerely hope their fate isn't as mundane as a game of captains and generals.

The Psijiics will not initiate offensive action against the Thalmor, since it is their responsibility to protect Alinor. Should the Thalmor be attacked on Merish soil by the Empire, I'm fairly sure the Psijiic order is obligated to help regardless of their personal feelings.

AE ALTADOON GHARTOK PADHOM, the Thalmor hate the Psijics, the Psijics withdrew their island, hell, one actively helps you [censored] with the Thalmor agent in the College.

There's no love between the two, and I could easily see the Psijics not honoring any obligations they have. No reason to help an enemy, and the Thalmor has labeled the Psijics as enemies.

Personally, I find it a bit odd that the Thalmor would hate the group of people holding back a giant Dwemer tank of mass destruction from finally achieving its goal of conquering the world--I guess haters gonna hate.

(Not disagreeing with you on your points, just curious as why they hate the Psijic.)

The Psijics are holding back the Numidium?

Can I have a sauce plz?

That's the impression I've gotten from reading around, though there seems to be a bit of room: Maybe he's still seiging Alinor; or he could've been flung into the future, or any number of odd things that happen when you break a Dragon. In all lorical outcomes though, it would appear that Walk-Brass is still functioning.

They like Alinor, but they really hate the Dominion. If you pay attention to the college of winterhold questline, you'll realize that

This is the map I just made based off the info.

http://i189.photobucket.com/albums/z201/Nulix160/4E201Tamriel.jpg

I think it's clear that the Empire still holds the most land and the Thalmor are still far ways off from destroying man.

While I enjoy the map, I'm fairly certain everything south of Bravil has been lost to Elsewyr and Argonia, and that both of the Khajit kingdoms are clients to the Aldmeri Dominion. Also, territorial extent can be misleading in terms of military might.

Here's what it boils down to: if the Empire loses in Skyrim, there wont even be another Great War. Instead, it would be Highrock-Skyrim-Hammerfell against the Aldmeri Dominion who roll through the Nibenay and capture Cyrodil without much of a resistance.

If, however, the Empire wins in Skyrim, there is hope for an unlikely rebound.

Then... there's the wildcard Argonians...

Is there any Aldmer, or high in Aldmer, that supports the good guys on the inside?

Anybody worth liking we know of yet?

Given what Ulfric says about preparing to fight the Altmer after the secession, and his nature, I would not be surprised if the Nords march into Cyrodiil to engage the Mer/consolidate mankind (if the secession happened at all). It remains to be seen.

Ha, ha, you're right about that quest. No wonder I felt like an errand girl for the Psijiics at the end. But it shows that even if the Psijiics have certain obligations that they are expected to uphold (ie - maybe they can't outright kill or hurt other Altmeri), that it doesn't mean that they won't find ways to get around those rules to meet their goals.

Even if the Psijiics are obligated to protect Alinor from a Mannish invasion, that doesn't mean they couldn't find some way of doing it without helping the Aldmeri Dominion governmental body itself. Or even doing it in such a way that it helps prevent the Thalmor from reaching some of their goals. It could even be the excuse they need to interfere with the Aldmeri Dominion in such a way that they perhaps can't right now, if they have obligations not to interfere with politics on Tamriel.


One thing that I haven't seen discussed so far is that it is always taken at face value that the Thalmor government really intends to do what it is always claimed of it. In other words, that they want to take over all Tamriel to prevent the possibility of man, and therefore turn back time to prevent mortality. This is what some Altmer want, however we also know the Thalmor lie: they lied to their own people about the Oblivion crisis, I assuming they lied to their Kings and Queens before they rose up and killed them (according to the book written by Lathendil - Rising Threat part2or3?), they probably lied about bringing the moons back. How do we know the ones with the most power in the Thalmor government might not have completely different reasons such as simple power lust, thirst for conquest, or for unknown reasons we don't know? How do we know they aren't just using Altmeri religious ideologies as rationalizations to keep themselves in power?

At the very least, we know that they're acting according to the religious plan. It's likely that not everyone understands / fully believes in this supernatural plan, but they're acting in full accordance with it.

I hope the Thalmor stick around for a while . I also hope the empire doesn't become reunited because that would be dreadfully boring going back to the status quo of the empire owning all of the provinces since a lot of the non-human races didn't even want to be controlled by the empire. Which brings me to another point: I don't really see why a lot of people hate the Thalmor or just see them as the bad guys. The high elves have pretty much been arrogant and for good reason while the empire on the otherhand annexed provinces even though the people in them tried to fight off imperial subjugation.

I always rather disliked the Empire in the Elder Scrolls. I know I hate borrowing from other universes, but the Empire should be more like "The Empire" from Star Wars. It should be a province-spanning regime led by a single and powerful leader who is rightfully a tyrant(All you morality lovers please do not come here). " An Empire based on tyranny, hatred of nonhumans(Elves mostly), brutal and lethal force, and, above all else, constant fear".

I guess the Thalmor need a taste of their own damn medicine. They need to be hated to the point of being killed off by a powerful force like pigs.

The Thalmor are evil because, you know, they want to slaughter everything that isn't an Altmer. And at this point, I doubt the Thalmor will kill everyone, but I am almst certain the Empire won't survive much longer

I love the empire, not following stereotypes 'n' all. I think fighting for them is was an honor.