After reading "http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Skyrim:The_Dragon_War", I had an interesting theory pop into my head...

First, the excerpt that piqued me:

"An ambitious dragon priest, or a particular dragon". Mix those together and who do you get?

Miraak.

I think that Miraak, this mere mortal who somehow had the Thu'um of a dragon, horrified the dragons. Miraak had his little power trip, demonstrating he had the lust for power of a dragon as well. After Vahlok drove him off, the dragons looked upon the mortals with suspicion. How many other of these mortal abominations were there? To prove their loyalty and that they were not like Miraak, the remaining priests doubled down on the despotism. The dragons (most of them at least), eager to avoid another such dragon/human abomination (and because it satisfied that base need for domination) were all too eager to join in, including Alduin. And then the rest is history we already know: The mortals chafing under the tyranny, Paarthurnax deciding he had enough of the madness and empowering the oppressed mortals with the Thu'um, Alduin's banishment, etc.

All because of the first cosmic fluke of a dragon soul ending up inside a mortal coil.

Slight problem with the timing:

Miraak was approached by the three Nord heroes who took down Alduin to fight in the dragon war. He can't have started the dragon war if he was approached by members actually fighting it to join the dragon war.

However, this can be solved if we take the "Dragon War" to actually be an underground/resistance movement that spanned generations, which finally boiled over into an outright war after Miraak's failed rebellion, instead of a short, active war.

If so, this is a rough breakdown of events:

• Dragon Cult/Dragons becomes despotic


• Initial rebellion is a failure as nobody can use the Thu'um or otherwise effectively fight the dragons. Survivors go underground, trying to destablize the cult rather than fight the dragons head-on, with limited success.


• Miraak is born, gained initial knowledge of his nature likely due to being present during a rare success of resistance members killing a dragon.


• HM Contacts Miraak, teaches him some shouts. Felldir and the others contact Miraak to fight for the resistance. Miraak refuses.


• Miraak starts his own rebellion. Fails, but not before he can take down more dragons.


• As rumors of Miraak having killed dragons spreads, more people join the resistance, fueled by the knowledge that Dragons can be killed. Attempts to quash the rumors only cement it, as immortal creatures shouldn't be afraid if it was only a rumor.


• War boils over into actual armed conflict, Paar (and possibly a few other dragons) switches sides, teaches the Nords how to Shout.

I like to think that the Dragon Cult was just that, a Cult of relatively powerful figures who got big heads because powerful but otherwise passive beings gave them super powered toys to play with. Their power grew until the defacto rulers decided to try and curb it. Along comes the dragons looking for tribute, and everything proceeded to its logical conclusion. Granted, I kind of prefer down playing the Cults prominence in Skyrim overall, mostly because I find the whole thing to be an egregious plot tumor that doesn't quite mesh up with most of the ancient Nordic history we're handed previously, if it was as large and powerful as its sometimes made out to be. The fact that I like to think of the Cult being filled with Doomsday psychopaths hastening Alduin's devouring of the world also helps.

And honestly, I think that despite being the first Dragonborn, Miraak was...ineffectual at securing any sort of long lasting legacy. I mean, we know he was since no one save the Skaal think he ever existed, but I mean even during his own lifetime. Hakon and the others must have approached Miraak way before the Nord's got sick of the DC, otherwise there's no way Vahlok would have been able to muster up the forces that's described in order to take him out and establish a new outpost if the war was on the mainland. Frankly, the guy was probably pretty obscure to 99.9% of Nord's. The fact that he can mind woogie people with only vague recollections of what happened to them after the fact doesn't help.

Miraak was not killed when Vahlok drove him off. They may have asked around in some daedra worshipper circles about means to contact Miraak.

Never said he was killed. Just that his rebellion had failed, and rumors swirled about what he had actually accomplished.

Good theory. I felt guilty towards the end of DLC, there should be a choice to join Mirakk and fight with Mora like in this vid http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SoHSKXm1sl8

There's one problem with that: Miraak doesn't want to join with you. He wants to devour your soul. In a way, I guess he does want to "join with you", but in a manner that completely deprives you of your own agency. Miraak's all about that; apparently the only one that deserves free will is Miraak himself according to him, seeing how he enthralls people and even dragons.

That's his power trip.

That's a really well made mod, but I still prefer to kill him and be the Last Dragonborn.