So who was ruling, exactly, when Titus sacked the Imperial City?

Septim dynasty fell before Mede took the Imperial City. Titus just reconquered The Niben in order to reunify Cyrodiil, which had split into two after the OB Crisis. As for who was ruling The Niben, nothing has been said. And since it has been 40 years after the OB Crisis, and from what it seems, Titus has only reunified after the last decade or so, I'd assume the empire went to hell rather quickly after the Oblivion Crisis.

And if Cyrodiil split, then, pretty much, the entire empire crumbled. The only that's setting Titus Mede from Tiber Septim is that Tiber got himself divine backing. Titus is just a badass normal.

After Uriel Septim's death no new Emperor was crowned and Chancellor Ocato and the Elder Council tried to hold the Empire together. How long that lasted I have no idea but maybe they were still in control of the IC (although not much else) when Titus Mede sacked it.

The only thing the Elder Council and Ocato seemed to have held was The Niben then. Colovia has pretty much been the military arm of the Cyrodiils. If Cyrodiil split, the empire went to [censored].

Yes.
Yes.
No.
Yes.
Stormcloaks.

Although it is clear that Titus "sacked the Imperial City" at some point, which at the time may have been held by Chancellor Ocato, or some legitimate regent appointed by the Septims, no?

"Sacking" suggest there was at least some sort of authority in the I.C. at the time, and it also suggests a violent action, rather than "Titus Mede agreed to take over the Imperial City at the request of the populace" or "he stepped up to lead the Empire when called"

(In other words he is a usurper.)

Attrebus Mede probably has far more relevance to the history than Titus. We won't know though until the next book comes out.

Like I said, The Niben and Colovia split. If Titus was to take The Niben in order to unify Cyrodiil, he had to hold the Imperial City. The empire was in shambles, as in it no longer existed from what the books indicated. If it did, the Mede empire wouldn't just be Cyrodiil only at the point of the books.

As such, there was hardly what I'd call a Septim regant. Seeing how history has pointed it usually takes ~400-1000 years for Cyrodiil to unify, and then try to unify Tamriel, Titus Mede must have been like "screw waiting for some divine mofo, I'm going to get the Cyrodiilic empire back myself!"

May have been held by the Elder Council, may have been held by another warlord, we don't know.
The Empire was in a mess, I doubt anyone was going to reunite even just Cyrodil with kind words alone.

Was there no legitimate heir to the throne?

Did the Septim dynasty not have some sort of rules of succession or process to appoint a new Emperor?

Even the Nords call a Moot in these situations.

"Yeah, but....uhm....TEH SCROLLZ FOR TOLD IT!!!!"

The point of OB was to get rid of the Spetim dynasty. Martin, for all intents and purposes, was the last legitimate heir to the throne.

As for rules of succession, it seemed to have fallen on the Council's lap to run things, but even then, Cyrodiil split along with all the other lands. Even the lands that really require no real hold, like Elsywer, left. As such, it was pretty much every land for themselves, with Titus the only one who thought waiting for someone with divine backing svcked, and that order needed to be established, else another 400 years of chaos would reign till that divine backed ass came around.

If there was someone ruling with a Septim sticker, it'd be completely in name only, as there was no more empire.

There was a Stormcloak Soldier in the Quakecon footage; he was the soldier who tried to help you against the first dragon.

1 thing that i been confused about, the Empire. (i didn't read up to well on this topic i know) is the empire simply those who supported the king, or is the empire the Imperial Empire? because ill be with the empire if its the imperials.

How do you know for certain?

For a brief moment (1.5 seconds at most) you can see "Stormcloak soldier" pop up as Todd runs past him to attack the dragon.

I'll send you the pic, but it says you can't receive any more messages. :/

I think it's the Imperial empire, but don't quote me.

THIS

Very interesting, so it seems that the Stormcloaks are in control of a good portion of White Hold.

They seem to be authority figures when Andrew Reiner encountered them on the river bank north of Riverwood, close to The Pale.

Also, they seem to be in control of North Keep (the area where the fight with the two dragons takes place).

It's looking more and more like the entire province is going to be divided between two roughly equally powerful factions. Since the Companions are based in Whiterun, I'm guessing they might be allied with the Stormcloaks at the start of the game.

The Thieves' Guild is in Riften and the College of Winterhold in Winter Hold - I wonder where they stand.

It seems the role of the PC in this war might be to choose one side and build support among the other factions and Holds. If so, this is going to be a truly ambitious and epic game.

I thought that another warlord had originally taken the city before Titus Mede. And Mede simply drove him out. Eddar Olin, maybe?



The Empire is the Imperial Empire. The King of Skyrim supported the Empire, and when the King died, his ability to keep Skyrim in the Empire died with him. So now Skyrim is torn between those who support the Empire (and the former King) and those who believe Skyrim should go its own way.

I'm hoping that the civil war is completely separate from the main quest. We know Todd has said that the Main Quest will be more linear then faction quest lines. If the civil war is unrelated to the whole Alduin situation, we could have a nice opportunity for branching quest lines a la New Vegas between the Stormcloaks and Empire.

Judging by http://www.imperial-library.info/content/fourth-era you are probably right. In that case there was no legitimate authority.

Personally, I prefer an Oblivion style storyline. I also suspect that that's exactly what we are going to get.

The New Vegas writers wrote themselves into a corner by allowing you to choose sides and achieve multiple endings. But, they had the luxury of doing this because they were bringing the game to a hard end and only had to deal with the results of these multiple paths in a slideshow. Skyrim is an open ended game, so has to reach a predetermined after-story state. This implies that either the civil war is just a backdrop conflict that doesn't actually get resolved during the game or that the winner will be predetermined in which case it doesn't make any sense to be able to 'help' the side that is ultimately scripted to lose.

As to which side is good and bad, that's up in the air. Even if the empire in question is the Mede Empire, it will have been 160 years old by the time the events of Skyrim takes place, if I'm not mistaken. A lot can change in 160 years and by then the Empire may be largely benevolent and a boon to it's peoples. Likewise, rebellions aren't always based on noble ideals nor do they necessarily create a better life for the people when they succeed. Personally, I'm hoping that the Empire is the good guys because the 'Evil Empire crushing freedom fighting rebels' is just a little bit too overdone.