That was over 600 years before the events of TES V.

I was always under the impression that this quote taken from the first edition of the Pocket Guide was not accurate, and was Imperial propaganda to make the high elves look like horrible baby-killers. The same Imperial scribe then goes on to say of the Altmer :

"They have no real names of their own, only combinations of numbers that, when spoken aloud, sound to human ears as such. They feel no real tenderness for one another and have no concept of compassion."
"They are decadent and self-obsessed, and prize form and their own brand of manners or style as their main value....Each of them is concerned solely with himself, and as a result they do no real socializing; they meet and hold courts only to demonstrate their importance and power to each other. Rarely do they speak to the human ambassadors of Cyrodiil; when they do, their speech is full of riddles, or spell-words that enchant one to a satisfied madness."

He basically describes them as completely inhumane, greedy psychopaths. Does the above quote sound like how the Altmer are portrayed in game? (Well, maybe the Thalmor come close to being as narcisstic, but not most other high elves.)

It is propaganda, yes, but that does not mean it's completely untrue. YR would have exploded in rage if it was made up, but he is oddly silent for the page about the Dominion.

Does that mean that YR agrees with the scribes assertion that Altmer are "decadent and self-obsessed"? Or that they "feel no real tenderness for one another and have no concept of compassion"? He just nodded and smiled at how amazingly accurate the author was in describing how he himself pictures his own people?

It could be that the assertions were so ridiculous as to not even bother writing notes about it. Or it could be some of it was false information fed to the human ambassadors by the Altmer for other reasons. If the elves do breed slower than the humans, that would put the elves at a distinct disadvantage. Putting out the idea that Altmer breed just as quickly as humans but choose to kill most of their babies could have just been deliberate misinformation, that YR just chose not to comment on.

This is literally the only source that says that Altmer choose to kill most of their own babies. Just for my part, I will take it with a huge grain of salt until there is another confirmed source of this idea, or it's mentioned in-game.

Back to the original discussion, I guess I am the only one who believes it really doesn't matter which side of the war wins. Bethesda has to make it so that future games won't be tied into whichever side is triumphant, so most likely the only thing that is important is the fact the war did end eventually.

It's also possible, or maybe likely, that Skyrim may have some future crisis that effectively makes the end of the war inconsequential. Same way that Morrowind had the Red Year, and Cyrodiil had the Great War. Besthesda seems to want to make us genuinely care for the provinces they create, just so they can stomp on our hearts when they screw around with them.

So OP, don't feel bad about Ulfric Stormcloak's allegiances. Because it probably won't matter in the end, anyway. Feel better?

The author exaggerates the killings, most likely. I highly doubt they call 9 out of 10 babies. They probably just kill the very ugly ones. Or perhaps it depends on their social rank, with the highest class only accepting the best, pretty babies but poor families most likely taking what they can get.

Summerset is a cruel, status obsessed, racist, xenophobic nation. A high elf in Redguard mentions a shopkeeper (like himself) would be "the lowest of the low" in Summerset.

It is a little odd that YR didn't rip more into the anti-elven sentiments, not just the baby-killing one (the idea itself, I can believe, but the "9 out of 10" numbers would be ludicrous and self-destructive even for a mannish nation).

That aside, it wasn't Red Year that invalidated player choices in Morrowind, it was rather the irrelevance of the small effects your choices had outside Vvardenfell. Likewise, Cyrodiil's similarly small choices weren't necessarily invalidated by the Great War, but by the time skip. Skyrim is a bit different: its choices have much further-reaching consequences and each opposes the other. And the events are big enough that even with the most diabolical possible solutions (outside of destroying the entire world, which, by the way, I feel would be a terrible idea) would be unable to cover up the outcome.

I smell a dragon break coming.

I could go for another Dragon Break miracle of peace. It's not implausible, given Alduin's connection to Akatosh. And you certainly break him.

How would that work, though? Is Skyrim part of the Empire or not? Not to mention that it'd be incredibly boring to pull the same stunt twice because they allowed you to choose.

Well unless Landfall happens soon I don't see how they can invalidate it fast enough, or logically, without a dragon break.

Snow-throat collapses. Landing straight on Whiterun. Earthquakes happen throughout the country. Winterhold falls completely into the sea because of it and both Solitude and Windhelm are swept away entirely by the tidal waves which are a direct result. The earthquake also cause the volcano that is under Markath to errupt, destroying the entire city in the process (and more importantly the silver mines).
Because of this Skyrim can no longer supply foods and goods, the country is dependant on the Empire as it's only source of resources. The Empire continues trading with Skyrim but no longer has an active legion presence there as there isn't anything worth defending or fighting for anymore.

Yeah Snow-Throat collapsing seems really Deus Ex Machina to me, not even in a dragonbreak OK lore way.

It isn't a Volcano like Vvardenfell is, and we have no real evidence of Snow-Throat being structurally unstable, besides its peak is in two dimensions or w/e, which really isn't a instability more like a feature.

They decide for whatever reason to not resume fighting after the truce ends. Ulfric settles for ruling half of Skyrim and striking at the Thalmor with what he's got. The Imperials let go of the whole regicide thing on grounds that it was Nord custom (even if it was deceitful and one-sided). Without a High King, Snow-Throat remains inactive.

I guess they could bring out a new solution to the civil war, since nothing previously done aside from a Dragon Break would actually be be able to cover up something as big as the outcome of a civil war. Or, perhaps they could introduce DLC that changes the situation.

They could just explain it away, with Snow-throat being the stone where Alduin was the Tower, we just misread that. Tower falls, stone falls... Really I have no idea, but it will probably be something nobody see's coming that will completely destroy the province. Snow-throat falling over was the only thing I could think off. That or another great war which unites Skyrim and the Empire again against the common threat.

Well Titus Mede did obviously plan to attack The Thalmor.

It is made brutally obvious The Empire only accepeted the WGC to stand The thalmor in the back later.

Slightly off topic rant: A new great war will happen, but in the mean time Thalmor agents are running around Skyrim and very likely Cyrodiil and High Rock as well. Stamping out Talos worship and learning more and more about the locals every single day. They are gathering information and learning things while the Empire is for as far as I can tell completely in the dark. Not to mention that they actually invite nobles and important people to their parties and could just as easily turn one of those into a giant orgy of death...

A surprise attack by the Thalmor is then very possible, a surprise attack by the Empire would be much more difficult. The Empire is acting like idiots here.

We still have DLC/expansions to get through, which will quite likely help tie things up (or create more confusion).

My guess is: as soon as the civil war ends in Skyrim, the Dominion pushes and starts the second Great War. Both Skyrim and the Empire will join forces for the assault... regardless if Skyrim is independent or not, they want to attack the Dominion just as badly. After the Dominion loses, Skyrim will see the Empire is without an Emperor and a son/daughter of Skyrim will take over, ensuring Skyrim is unified with the Empire (by ruling it themselves).

Either that, or the Empire finally and completely dissolves without an Emperor or heirs, and all provinces become independent.

Or the Dominion wins and starts its own Empire, which Skyrim either withdraws from or is forcefully taken over by.


Regardless, it won't matter whether the civil war ended with Skyrim's independence or not, as plenty of things can happen to change the result.


What makes me sad is that the Greybeards will lose Paarthurnax and he will fail to bring the dragons to the Way of the Voice, because the lore has to assume he was killed, or at least does nothing further that's worthy of mention. Unless DLC or something can pull a trick explaining how he can come back after his soul is absorbed (which is entirely possible, as I've posted ideas about the Dragonborn being able to revive dragons they've absorbed by learning the same shout Alduin used, but that's probably not likely to happen).

Of course Ulfric is an asset to the Thalmor. In fact, he and his Stormcloaks are probably the Thalmor's main hope of winning the war.

The Stormcloaks are solely focused on the short term goal. They simply don't care to think beyond their emotion and their anger over the outlawing of Talos worship.

The Empire signed the treaty because it was the only hope Tamriel had. They sign the treaty, regain strength then hit back when they can. Instead, you have the Stormcloaks running in like spoiled children and try to dismantle the Empire, the very faction Talos himself founded.

The Thalmor say it best themselves:

"Ulfric's death and an Imperial victory would have harmed our overall position in Skyrim"

When the bad guys say that, you know the Stormcloaks are wrong side to be behind.

And they also say this:

A Stormcloak victory is also to be avoided, however, so even indirect aid to the Stormcloaks must be carefully managed.

And if anything, the Thalmor are not even going to be able to operate freely within Skyrim, because Ulfric has no love for them. The empire, on the other hand, allowed them to set up camp and tinker around.

Does anyone know how a stormcloak victory effects Thalmor Spawns?

I dunno. Stopped running into everything after I beat the Civil and the MQ shortly after.

Not sure, I haven't ended the civil war for the Stormcloak side yet, and haven't heard anything. I did read though, that Ondolemar (that Justiciar who paces back and forth in front of the Jarl of Markarth's throne room) will disappear and his body will show up in a coffin in the hall of the dead if the Stormcloaks take that city.


We also know from a certain quest that the current Emperor won't likely be around for another game. Could it be possible that they could get a new Emperor who has enough guts to rip up the White-Gold Concordat, and tell the Thalmor to get out of Imperial provinces? They could say that both General Tullius and Ulfric died during the war, that it appeared that the war was over for one side or the other until renewed fighting happened. Then when the new Emperor comes to power and tells the Thalmor where to go, and makes Talos worship legal again, Skyrim renews it's allegiance to the Empire. Civil war over.

Of course, this most likely would cause a new war with the Thalmor, but it's pretty much been stated that this will happen sooner or later anyways.

Because other than a dragon-break like incident, or something equally as destructive as has been described in this thread, it's hard to imagine how they will make either side winning the war work in future games.

I hope this is what happens. If my conspiracy theory about Titus II is ccorrect, this is what he wants. Tullius and Ulfric don't even need to die, in my opinion. Beth can simply make the High Hrothgar peace treaty canon. Then all they need to say in the next game is how the civil war in Skyrim stalled when the dragons came, only to be completely finished by the Dragonborn via a peace treaty written at High Hrothgar and overseen by the Greybeards.

That act sends then ripples throughout the Empire. People everywhere see it as Divine intervention in the Empire's darkest days, the Dragonborn was Talos come again or something. The Dragonborn mysteriously disappears shortly afterwards, but many try to continue the legacy, including the new Emperor who uses the Dragonborn to rally a revitalized Empire against the Dominion.

The peace treaty is temporary. It is not an ending.