All this talk about the Aldmeri Dominion and how evil they are in Skyrim and I'm always wonderung about one thing: Why did no-one hire any assassins to kill some of the Thalmor leaders?
I can see why people like Tallius, as much of a whimp he may be, are too honorable to hire the DB or the Morag Tong. But at least some high ranking politicians of the Empire seem totally ok with killing off the own boss, why not send an assassin to behead the Thalmor generals? During the war, the Night Mother was still in Cyrodiil and I'm sure someone in the Imperial Court would have had enogh influence to protect the Listener or at least some top shots of the Black Hand.

The whole great war is pretty much a race war. So why do act both sides so fair in terms of assassinations? In actual history were much cleaner wars than this one and leaders still got backstabbed. Hell, even in relatively peaceful times the Dunmer houses tend to kill each other. Is the DB generally regarded as the bigger evil than the threat of racial cleanings?

Smart money says that Ocato took a Brotherhood knife to his dorsal-quarters.

I think its just bethesda being bethesda...

Well, when the Thalmor invaded the mainland, they also destroyed the Dark Brotherhood, with only the Skyrim chapter surviving.

Just because there are no references to it didn't mean it didn't happen...but theorycrafting is more interesting - in Cicero's journal it says that only three dark Brotherhood sanctuaries remain - One in Skyrim, one in Elsweyr, and I forget the last one. It's possible that during the Great War, both sides wiped out as much Dark Brotherhood as they could as they didn't want their commanders being killed when not on the battlefield.

Come to think of it this is kinda weird. After all the Morag Tong assassinated so many emperors, nobles and other important persons that they seemed to be unbeatable.

That's exactly what the Blades were doing. Read the dossiers on Delphine and Esbern. The Thalmor assassins were more successful (or just a lot more up-front) but both sides were engaged in a cold war in which more than a few persons of interest were bumped off..

Neither the DB nor the Imperial Court would be so stupid to don't see the danger. If some court members would have helped some DB members escape before the whole disaster, I'm pretty sure the DB would have been totally into some Thalmor murdering.


Exactly, the Empire has the two most dangerous assassins' groups within its borders and decide to fight one and let the other die with the rest of the Dunmer just because it's not honorable to send some guys over to the Thalmor and kill some of their most important men/women?


But those two sides did not succesfully kill more than one emperor in the history of Tamriel. The Morag Tong did it, the DB did it even during the return of Alduin. I can't understand why nobody was willing to use one of the two most feared assassins' groups on the whole continent. Some of the court seemed pretty happy with the DB when they killed the own emperor after the war, but during that time nobody wanted to do it?

If you play the DB quest line in Skyrim, you learn that the Thalmor destroy every single chapter, along with others closing, as found by the journal of the only surviving member of the Cyrodiilic DB. The Listener and all the members of the Black Hand are killed off, as the Thalmor raid the sancuary of the Night Mother. It survived, but the sole remaining Black Hand member succumbs to his wounds, if I remember correctly.

Currently, it's only the Skyrim Chapter that's alive and running. It did pick up some major coin, and is collablorating with the Skyrim Thieves Guild to rebuild its strength once again. Also, the MT did kill Reman and a Potentate, but so did the Dark Brotherhood. In addition, it's only the Dark Brotherhood that operated everywhere, with the MT only in Morrowind, and even then, the MT is ONLY a chained dog to the Great Houses.

I know how the DB was destroyed outside of Skyrim, but with a little inofficial Imperial help, at least some top shots of the blak hand could have escaped. I'm pretty sure that one or two men of the council would not mind "recruiting" experienced DB assassins for their cause by saving their arses. The DB in Cyrodiil wasn't stupid, they were out of options. And since the Blades, the useless bastards, did not stand against the Thalmor, it would have been logical (IMHO) for the Empire to look somewhere else for help. It's not like the Thalmor sailed off of Alinor and were in Bruma one second later.
I can see why nobody considered the MT, but the DB would have been a big help at the beginning of the war. And as we can see in Skyrim, some Imperials are willing to talk to DB people just to kill them off later.

Who would you assassinate? Knocking off Lady Arannelya or Lord Naarifin might have served to temporarily slow or stop the armies they were leading at best (if you can get to them, generals during a war would probably have a very good security detail), but in general it seems like the Thalmor don't have any specific leader, or even any particularly small group of leaders. If so, you could kill any one of those near the top ranks and someone could amost certainly move in to fill their place without much trouble.

Because the Thalmor would have beat them at it. At the start of the war, the Thalmor dumped a cartful of spy-heads at the emperors feet. Not only does this demonstrate that they're really good at rooting out / killing infiltrators, but it also shows that they can effin sneak a cart full of rotting human heads into important fancy buildings.

That, and it's very likely they'd be able to sniff out the DB, and remove them with extreme prejudice. If the Thalmor were able to best the entire Blades, a few chapters in Summerset Ilse would be easy.

Assuming there ever were any. In every Tamrielic territory we've seen, Daedra worship is kinda like being one of those sad kids who writes poetry: omnipresent, shunned, and frowned upon (in cyrodiil, their shrines are better maintained than the fortresses). In Oblivion, the idea that some Altmer youth were turning to daedra worship is speculative. Flat-out Sithis worship is completely antithetical to everything Altmeri culture stands for.

I don't think a few Dark Brotherhood assassins would be able to take down every leader of the Thalmor. Only the best sneaks in the Black Hand would be able to penetrate the physical fortifications that the Thalmor HQ. Then you've got magical traps, barriers, Atronach guards etc. to deal with. The Altmer are just too strong.

And paranoid.

And the carpets were never the same...

But in my honest opinion, if the Khajiit weren't always high on Skooma, they'd be seriously powerful enough to overthrow the Altmer in Elsweyr. They're the only race with naturally talented warriors, sneaks and mages (and battlecats).

They're also a very disorganized bunch.

But what a hollow victory that'd be, if they couldn't have their sugar...