That's because the mer let no monument stand to recognize the mannish civilizations they subjugated. Its not as though mankind just poofed into existence as slaves of the Mer.

From what we know about man kind on Tamriel was that they were little more than tribes. The Altmer brought the standard for civilization, for both their own kind and eventaully man. There was no civilization of man to stand before the better organized mer in the begining. Truely, civilization started with the mer and the first coherent Empire of Man came from the Nord's.

Edit: All their territorial gains against the Empire were even lost, and they were driven back even after the Empire opted out of the war. The Raga continued fighting, and drove the Altmer out of Hammerfell. Their not an unstopable jugernaught, man had the numbers to end it before it began but the Empire didn't have the strength to land the final blow. By the end of the Great War, the Mer had to be in just as bad shape as the Empire or they wouldn't have sued for peace.

I can't put a source, but I heard somewhere that the Elves, had the war gone on, would have crushed the Empire, and that Mede was bluffing.

From what I read so far in "The Rising Threat" the altmer depend upon espionage, infiltration, and otherwise, underhanded maneuvers to win. The altmer have low numbers, but what they lack in manpower, they make up with terrifyingly good planning, breaking things down from the inside, and so on.

From what I can also gather, they depend heavily on initial success. If the war had dragged on even further, it could have badly crippled them. They also lost the support of the Psijics, as the Psijics removed themselves. It'll also take some years for the Thalmor to rebuild its military might, so for now, they rely on assassination, espionage, and demoralization. I'd say they're currently a paper tiger, but the kingdoms of men are also weak due to having their asses kicked hard in the beginning of The Great War.

Should a surprise attack be made on Summerset Ilse, I'm sure the altmer would be hit hard.

You don't need a source, just tell me why?

What Hellmouth said sounds more merish to me and something I can easily agree on. Their strength doesn't lay in brute strength but shady dealings. I can easily see them using a round about way of ensuring victory, but its never been their strong suit to go in guns blazing, kicking ass and taking names. I've been getting this general feeling in numerous threads that people think the Thalmor and Summerset are an end all power when the Empire itself was weak from internal warfare, strife, regieme change and not to mention the affects of the Oblivion Crisis. The Altmer had a chance, and took it, nothing more and nothing less.

Agreed. This is pretty much just fact.


This is less true. Mankind lost more forces, and suffered more damage. The Dominion vastly overextended itself, but they didn't really lose anything. Most of the battles described in The Great War are either indecisive or end in routes, and there's pretty much a 1:1 we make you flee, you make us flee balance, with the only exception I can see being that the Redguards had to make an impromptu march through a desert. The only armies destroyed are, again, even. Both sides lost significant forces when they lost White-Gold. The only real difference is that the Altmer devastated the territories they held. Oh, and the Empire is letting its wounds get infected by the Concordat.

I don't want to detract the conversation from it's current subject, but I figured I should ask here rather than making a new thread. I'm playing as a Dunmer in Skyrim, and I'm wondering, how do the Dunmer feel about the Dominion? I feel like on the one hand the Dunmer would be supportive because of their similar arrogance. But I also feel like the mingling with the Nords because of Landfall might have caused the Dunmer to favor men a little more. So what do you guys think?

Clearly you've never seen two incredibly arrogant people in the same room.
The Dunmer and the Dominion, as far as we can tell, do not get along at all.

Good point, I guess I hadn't thought of that.

So do you think that the Dunmer government, or what's left of it has either secretly or openly resisted the Thalmor? And do the Thalmor consider the Dunmer to be an opposition to their goal?

The Thalmor most likely consider the dunmer to be impure heretics of a high order.

"Although victorious, the Imperial armies were in no shape to continue the war. The entire remaining Imperial force was gathered in Cyrodiil, exhausted and decimated by the Battle of the Red Ring. Not a single legion had more then half its soldiers fit for duty. Two legions had been effectively annihilated, not counting the loss of the Eight during the retreat from the Imperial City the previous year. Titus II knew that there would be no better time to negotiate peace and late in 4E 175 the Empire and the Aldmeri Dominion signed the White-Gold Concordat, ending the Great War."
- The Great War

If the Great War had continued, it would be very likely that the Imperial armies wouldn't have been able to stand. If the Thalmor had known this, I doubt they would have agreed to the Concordat and would have just gone for the jugular. So either the Thalmor themselves were heavily weakened and also unable to continue fighting, or Titus II was able to fool the Thalmor into thinking they weren't going to go down any time soon.

The Medes are portrayed as very crafty tacticians, and knowing when and how to bluff would be a part of that. He knew to retreat from the IC so they could take it back later (along with most of Cyrodiil), so it's also likely he knew to agree to the Concordat to temporarily stop the fighting so they can overtake the Thalmor after getting their strength back.

It's premature to claim success when the plan has yet to be completed.

I don't think the Thalmor would have believed the Empire to be in a great state, they were in just as much trouble. They were spread thin by that time. After the peace was signed the Thalmor still had to deal with Hammerfell and they suffered heavily, so heavy that they are slowly being kicked out. So the Thalmor military strength is likely not as great as it has been. They needed a peace as much as the Empire did. When a peace was offered they negotiated to their best of their ability and got a lot of out it.

The difference is however that the Thalmor have a heavy presence in the Empire now, and achieved several of their goals and have come closer to achieving others, while the Empire is in dire need. It needs to either die and be replaced, or regroup effectively and quickly in order to strike back before the Thalmor recover.

I'm sure the Thalmor loathe the Dunmer.
A) Everyone does, but especially the Altmer for the way the Dunmer are their complete ideological antithesis. Not to mention the whole cultural exodus rebellion thing the Chimer had going on.
B) The aforementioned arrogance issue

edit: Emoticons are stupid and disrupt letter-based listings.

The Thalmor were not behind Alduin's return, and neither were the Falmer. The Thalmor do not want this world to end, they want Man to be erased from it.

So ideally the Thalmor wants to get rid of the Bretons, Imperials, and Nords?

Say again?

The documents you steal from the Thalmor Embassy in Skyrim suggest that they're in the dark about the dragons' return just as much as everyone else. On the other hand I can't imagine them really complaining about it if Alduin's return was something they were ultimately looking forward to anyway.

That has nothing to do with their overall goals though, Just because they don't know why the dragons are returning doesn't mean they don't want to end the world and return to before the Dawn, the only reason they would not want the world to end is if ended before they could ensure that Man never came around again..

Going back to an earlier question then, what are the general opinions, based on lore, of which side needs to be victorious in Skyrim for the Dominion to NOT end up succeding completely?

The Empire is still, only just, the thing holding back the Thalmer from complete and total domination of... pretty much everything. However, they seem to be pretty much svcking at it since with Talos banned and the Empire actually having few provinces still under their control, it is made to sound liek the Thalmor are just biding their time, as they always do, secure in the knowledge that they have pretty much already won. And in the game so far i've found nothing to disprove that as fact. It truly does seem that if they lose Skyrim, they lose against the Thalmer.

Then we have the Stormcloaks. Technically if they 'win' then Skyrim becomes independant, and Talos worship might very well be fully restored, in Skyrim at least. That would somewhat undermine the Thalmer plans. Yet, at the same time Skyrim dropping out of the Empire might very well be the straw that breaks the back, especially consider a Stormclaok victory would mean the Legion losing even more military might from both deaths and lack of Nord recruits. They have already lost the Redguards. Without the Empire, it would be the self-ruled provinces against the Dominion. Hammerfell repulsed them, after the Empire's betrayal, but i'm not convinces that when singled out Hammerfell, High Rock, Skyrim and so forth would be able to truly put up more than a token fight.

And even if the two do reconcile, the Empire's situation of pandering to the Thalmer demands won't likely change. And that just means it might be another century or so before they are ready to make their move.

I suppose the Dragonborn really is the wild card here. Whatever is chosen as cannon for the next game, something is going to have to be done. Things are looking bad for existance itself. I'm wondering if the next game won't take place on Summerset, and be about bringing the Thalmer down. Or a ton of stuff will go on offscreen again.

I'm having problems adjusting to the world i'm faced with in Skyrim. So much so that its actually effecting my enjoyment of the game, since its all so grim. Everything, and I do mean practically everything (including factions) are in pretty crappy states.

On the Dunmer they seem to have Morrownd back/still, but it seems to be a 'shattered' nation.
Doesn't seem to be much news about the Argonians, but they are usually flthy neutrals.
Hammerfell was betrayed and badly damaged.
Cyrodiil from ingame news is practically in ruins.
High Rock I haven't noted too many refrences.
The Bosmer despite being 'welcome' in the Dominion, a lot actually rebelled and from what I understand they have lost half of Valenwood. Though I might have misremembered.
Orsinium is back at least, as if you play an Orc they note they will send your remains back there.
Elsweyre from what I understand is in turmoil.

Frankly we need a new, Talos approved, Empire to tie everything together again. The Medes have done well, or at least did up until Titus II, but I vote Dragonborn for Emperor. =P

If the objective of the next game is to take down the Thalmor, I will be extremely disappointed with Bethesda for basically completely eliminating the option of player choice from the games.

The way the games have gone, I would expect any "taking down" of the thalmor to be something that happens alongside (at most) of what the player does, or having it be something like the legion/stormcloak questlines. The Player themselves will likely be concerned with whatever mythic threat has arisen at the moment, rather than the long-game of the thalmor.

Stormcloaks. Talos (shezzarines in general) are mankind's greatest weapon. Titus seems to be a very down-to earth guy, not concerned enough with religion and myth. Mankind might be able to win with mundane military might, but they definitely will win if they really get divine power.


let's be honest: there's really never been a whole lot of player choice in these games to begin with.

1. Ulfric is the Thalmor's [censored].
2. If they resume Talos worship, the AD will pounce on them with all it's might, and Skyrim will have no Empire to protect it then.
3. Just because you worship Talos, doesn't mean you will have Shezzarines to defend you when the Thalmor comes for you.

And the Empire isn't? :huh:

The only way for the Dominion to fail is for humans to stand up together. If the Empire takes control it will do so at the price of the loyalty and lives of some of their best fighters, and will continue to bow to the Thalmor's demands in exchange for peace. If the Stormcloaks succeed, the Empire will have fractured completely and everyone would only care about their own little part of the world. The Thalmor sows discord because they know they cannot stand up to a united human nation. While we squabble they're free to move behind the scenes and work on their plots.