for the impending dragon invasion?

seems a little insulting to the previous games to suggest they were merely indicators of a bigger threat yet to come.

For example... gates to hell popping up all over the world spewing forth demons was merely a sign something bigger was to come?

If given the choice Id take dragons over dimensional portals from hell anyday.

Dagoth Ur/Nerevarine were just puppets acting out pre-ordained roles?

Seems like a cheap play on nostaligia.

An event being a sign of something else coming doesn't mean it's not important in its own right.

I believe most of this was in the lore already. That something was coming at least, resulting from the destruction of the heart of Lorkhan in Morrowind, and some of the other things from the other games... Not that they're just making the entire thing up right now. I don't know the details exactly. Any lore buffs here?

I don't think it's insulting - more people on here seem to want more lore that ties everything together, and for me, it justs add to the "this will be EPIC!" hype

To add to my previous point, the dragons returning will be a sign of something else that we don't know yet. Doesn't make the dragons returning any less epic.

With my limited knowledge of lore i think that the other games weren't so much "signs" as they were simply the path that led here.
the destabilising of mundus with all the heart of lorkhan business and the attempts of dagon to try and destroy the world....
Lorkhan/shor/whatever forced Akatosh/alduin (i really hope they don't change that in game, the saviour god of the last game turning round to be the 'enemy' would be sweet) to chain himself to mundus and allow the world to be stable and inhabitable for such a long time.
now that the heart of lorkhan has been damaged, and akatosh freed from his role as defender of the empire, i'm hoping he's come to eat the world up, which is what he (alduin at least) does.

The disenchantment of the Heart of Lorkhan in Morrowind paved the way for the Oblivion Crisis (the Heart was basically a mythic symbol that helped hold up the barriers between Oblivion and Mundus/Nirn). The Oblivion Crisis resulted in Martin shattering the Amulet of Kings, which broke an age-old agreement of sorts with Akatosh (aka Alduin to the Nords). I don't think the exact implications have been worked out, yet.

I'm not really a lore expert, but I don't think the Staff of Chaos (from Arena) and the Numidium (from Daggerfall) were known to be pre-cursors to anything before now. I also wasn't around to know if there was any lore to foreshadow the Oblivion Crisis from the disenchantment of the Heart of Lorkhan before then (though there were some clear clues in the dialog for Tribunal and Bloodmoon, they came afterward).

It's all part of Dagon's plan, so he can jump again.

Read the http://www.imperial-library.info/content/nu-mantia-intercept and http://www.imperial-library.info/content/fight-one-eating-birth-dagon and you should be walking toward enlightenment.





As for the Staff of Chaos, Dagon helped Tharn get it...

agree with this, its all one big flow chart of events and consequences. (anyone getting the feeling that the nerevarine threw faeces into the fan? id rather have the occasional blight storm on morrowind than the whole world be destroyed xD)

If the Nerevarine hadn't stopped Dagoth Ur, the entire world would be reduced to blight storms and corpus beasts. A fate possibly worse than death. Especially because the Dragonborn would still have died off and there wouldn't be anything to stop Alduin anyways.

One could argue that the events of each game build on the events of the last. Daggerfall built on Arena. Morrowind built on Daggerfall. Oblivion built on both (the fall of Towers, which allowed the Oblivion Gates to open.) And now Skyrim builds on Oblivion and Morrowind.

I think by signs, it doesn't mean those events triggered the return of the dragons. Given the nature of the elder scrolls, it was probably more of like a "Just warning you. Once all of these prophesies have been fulfilled, be on the look out for these guys returning... Pay attention, because you have until then to prepare."

As long as they aren't following a Legend of Zelda timeline, I'm happy with whatever Bethesda decides to do.

The last "sign" was civil war, right? So that means that they were technically all "signs" and not just causes/consequences since the civil war had nothing to do with a tower or the rest of the world.

Each game has to do with you saving the world, and the Elder Scrolls foretell of these things and how they may turn out. So in a sense every game has been part of a prophecy.

Yeah, much better...

Yeah, lets just find everything we just learned about the game and criticize it. I mean seriously, this story sounds pretty amazing so far and I actually WANT to play it this time. This is the first main quest in an ES game I've been excited about. How about we just be happy with what we have found out and stop trying to nitpick every last thing about this game, especially since you haven't played it yet.

also, didn't everyone want this game to be its own? Its looks pretty on its own so far.