The marble jaws of Oblivion have been opened, who will stem the news tide? In the next few days we are about to be swamped with information about Elder Scrolls Online. I have seen what no waking eye has see, and I foresee the turmoil that awaits us.

This upcoming MMO is to be set in most of Tamriel, including parts of every single province, with more chunks to be unlocked as expansions. Apparently it spreads from Elder Root to Shornhelm, so there you go. It is set in the 2nd Era, during a great big civil war to crown a new Emperor, yadda yadda. Much more info is to come.

The worrying part, is mixed in with the gameplay details, are pieces of lore like the fact that the entire of Tamriel is now divided into three factions: The Aldmeri Dominion, The "Daggerfall Covenant" of the Bretons, Orcs and Hammerfell, and, um, the "Ebonheart Pact" of Morrowind, Skyrim and Argonia. All fighting over Cyrodiil. Yeah.

Now, I draw you here together for one simple reason: if, as early indicators seem to suggest, TESO twists and simplifies the Tamriel we love into something unrecognisable, how do we treat this new lore? The official line will be to call everything canon, no doubt. But we may find it difficult in our hearts to reconcile some of this new information with the picture of TES we hold dear.

Of course, holding different and contradictory pictures of a fantasy world side by side is something we are the undisputed world champions of, but we need a gameplan, now. It took us years to recover from the shock of Nu-Cyrod, we need to be ready for this outrageous débutante. Our lore-beards must be trimmed and arranged in all the latest fashions. This is a rocky relationship we have ahead of us, but by the Three we are going to make it work.

So, thoughts?

I'm going to make a cup of tea in order to spit it out over my screen.

Where's your sauce on the factions information?

The Tribunal Temple fighting over Cyrodiil?

Wat?

Meh. I'm chill.

We know very little of Tamriel, there are room for new additions no matter what some may think.

Some of us will dislike these additions, a few will say it contradicts past lore. Perhaps it will, but it dosen't need to so I think we should wait and see first.

I say we lock the doors and lower the shades until it all blows over.

We should pick and choose what we like about the works of the Hunt Valley heretics. If they come up with something good, we'll keep it. IF they come up with something bad, we go with the old. [censored] the new.

The rumour is that Imperials are not a playable race because they are the enemy.
They are working with Mannimarco to get Tamriel swallowed by Coldharbour because he promised them their former greatness back.

A lot of people dont like it, but, I dont know.
I kinda do.

The question is: What kind of lore-friendly justifications can we come up with to make this fit with what we know?

Dragon-break, as usual.

Honestly, how much DO we know about the period in between empires 2 and 3?

I agree with this.

Also, Nords, Argonians, and Dunmer all in the same faction?

I KNOW WHERE TO FIND THE LORE FORUM

Its not impossible.
If the threat is Cyrodiil then it makes geographic sense for one.

The living gods of Morrowind are at full power, or very nearly that, and possibly the neighbouring provinces seek protection from them in the form of an alliance.
I can see Vivec or Almalexia agreeing to that, if they got something in return.
Hlaalu wouldnt mind favourable trade agreements, Dres could get slaves out of it.
Indoril would follow the Triune, Redoran wouldnt care one way or the other and be insular, and Telvanni would be firmly fragmented with an official stance taken by Telvannis but each mage-lord just doing what he himself wants anyway.

In fact, if the Dunmer milk their position as most powerful and umbrella member of this alliance for all they can get, it goes some way to explaining later hostility between the Dunmer and the other two.

We try to look at the new addition to the series with open-hearts and minds, and see if we can enjoy it based on its own merits?

That will be my stance. I love the lore, but hell, I was a fan of Star Wars and Mass Effect. The former has had so many revisions and retcons that it could have had a dragon-break every week. The latter ended in such a manner as to crush the very love I had for the series.

Frankly, i'm looking at everythign with a much more charitable eye.



Simply... beautiful. I'll be carefully crafting a Dunmer Nightblade, thats for sure. This faction is where all the fun will be.

If the faction information is true, I'll say that the Nords have never been afraid of allying with ancient enemies. A King with the name "Mer-Killer" allied with the Direnni against the Alessian Order.

Yeah, I'd like to know where he's getting his information also.

How are the Orcs, Redguards and Bretons all getting along? That's what I want to know.

If this is true, thats why I won't take it seriously for lore and only enjoy it as a game. I'm sure this game will give me a heart attack on a number of levels. Nords siding with those bloody Mer? Pfffffffffffffffft.

Gonna treat it as a seperate bizarro universe.... Damned MMOs

These are all rumours floating around the Elder Scrolls Online forum.
Apparantly some people have read scans of the june issue of the magazine that has the article on the MMO.

It seems legit, but I dont know 100%

that was more a joke about how those three together make up about 90% of this forum's favorite races.

Treat it as a dragon break and hope the jills fix this mess.

Well they would be in a sort of similar situation to the Morrowind block in that it would be an alliance of convienence.
I imagine that when faced with powerful political blocks on two sides and an enemy trying to destroy the world in Cyrodiil the arch-politicians of Bretony did all they could to create a power block of their own.
Because it would be more dangerous to have the only fragmented region on a continent shared with three major players, the Redguards and Orsimer would join.

This is relevant.

So, look. Representations have to vary based on the media in which they're presented. TESO isn't going to be what we're used to, but we can still take its raw information and use it to expand the world we see in this forum. The mages guild apparently sends you out looking for 'lore books' (probably stuff we've already read), so there might be some interesting writing in there to help us out. I see this as a good thing, regardless of the fact that I doubt the unpalatable media will be overcome.

By the by, anyone know whether Summerset will be visitable?

This could easily be the opposite side of a very early Dragon Break.

That's how you write it out, it happened in another universe.

I love the Kirkbridey art direction taken here.

It said in the announcement that it takes place 1000 years before the events of TES V, what would that be in in the era notation? Also what is a dragon break?

I say we all create our own guild.

We can go around preaching to other players how wrong everything is.