from http://elderscrollsonline.com/en/news/post/2012/11/08/enter-the-nameless-mage-contest :

This is the story of a young and powerful Dark Elf, who is also an up-and-coming member of the Mages Guild. He, along with the very best of his peers, was hand-selected by Mages Guild leader and founder Vanus Galerion to accompany you in the assault on Cold Harbor. When the mass portal to Cold Harbor went awry, these formidable Mages Guild members arrived, scattered over the icy wasteland of Molag Bal’s realm. Separated from their allies and you, their partner, the group was captured and imprisoned by Molag Bal’s Daedric army for use in torturous live training exercises.

Vanus Galerion is alive and well in the second era. I was not aware of this, but upon skimming his history it seems he would eventually confront Mannimarco in a final battle, and die in said confrontation. No dates were given for any of this in the wiki I looked at, and I'm not positive of the source of that information, but given this new blurb from TESO's official site it would seem likely that the players will participate in this final battle or at least be peripherally involved.

I'm posting this because it jumped at me as something bearing a huge contradiction or two, but on closer scrutiny I'm not entirely sure. I am sure however, that someone here will be.

Hmm, I didn't think of Vanus when I first learned that Mannimarco was involved in the Planemeld; I just assumed that their issues had been resolved in combat by the time of TES: O. But if they're going to put detail to the Vanus vs. Manimarco story...that sounds awesome.

EDIT: Suddenly I'm very hyped up for the Mages Guild questline.

Here's some non-wiki sources on Galerion and Mannimarco:

http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Lore:Galerion_the_Mystic
http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Lore:Mannimarco,_King_of_Worms

There's no real contradiction in terms of dates, Galerion was born in the early years of the Second Era, so TESO would only put him at 500-600 years old. That's nothing for an Altmer sorcerer as powerful as him (Barenziah, who had no significant magical powers to speak of, was about that old when we met her in Morrowind).

Don't see a reason why this guy couldn't have been Telvanni.

Except for the implied Galerion-Mannimarco fight, which if executed correctly may be extremely awesome.

Of course, the same could be said about a TES MMO.

I feel he has to be an outlander. Although I may be wrong on this, the Mages Guild was by this time an Imperial institution, and the Empire had never conquered Morrowind culturally or militarily. Of course, there will still be a mages guild in Morrowind, regardless of whether it's historically accurate or not...

I already sent in a name.

I wonder how big the Mages guild will be compared to House Telvanni, or if there will be competition between the two. I wouldn't imagine that it would have spread too far into Morrowind, so I'm going to assume their headquarters is in Skyrim.

...But the Mages Guild wouldn't persist in a Mannimarco-led Imperial City, especially with Vanus still alive. So, in terms of logic and standard MMO mechanics, it's looking like the Mages Guild (the Mages Guild, not a (new) Mages Guild) has cut itself off from the Empire (for the time being) and is recruiting new members from all three alliances outside of Cyrodiil, to fight Mannimarco's influence.

I briefly considered giving him one of the Pentannual Census family names, just for kicks.

You know your duty.

DO IT.