Believe it or not, Altmer and Bosmer aren't the only races allowed in Alinor. An http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Skyrim:Venarus_Vulpin lived there before some trouble with a local inquisitor (which for all the Thalmor's ills seems pretty justified in this case). Added to this that I've never seen anything suggesting mannish and beast races aren't allowed in Dominion lands, I say it's more than feasible to have men and beastmen there.

I disagree, I don't want to end up having to thwart the villain repeatedly without making any progress against them like it was a Saturday morning cartoon. I don't want to have to suffer through several Darker and Edgier games where Nazi-esque elves rule over everyone, where half the time we'll probably end up as their unwitting pawns, and end up waiting 15-20 years before we get to strike a meaningful blow against them. Especially if the games end up involving unforeseen threats that were never alluded to before. If I wanted that, I'd go play a Warhammer 40k game.

The Thalmor were the most foreshadowed threat in TES V. To pass them up in favor of some previously unforeseeable threat out of nowhere or making them into a recurring villain you thwart over and over again seems like far worse a move than their threat being largely over by the start of TES VII. I don't want an offscreen moment of awesome of the Dominion getting destroyed, at least not before the player gets to put it in motion. I don't even think that stopping the Thalmor will necessarily spell doom for the Aldmeri Dominion, and it certainly won't end threats to Tamriel. But I want to be able to combat the threat that Bethesda did so well at making us hate, and foreshadowed so well, without having to wait decades for it.

I certainly don't want to fight them for decades and not actually accomplish anything. My idea was that each time a game includes them, they would be forced out of whatever province you're playing in until they have nothing but Summerset left. Of course, with no further DLCs coming our way for Skyrim, that whole plan goes out the frakking window...

We completely agree here. To throw away something with this much potential, knowing that there is a major conflict on the horizon (and, to some extent, still sore because we missed the last major conflict due to time skip), would be a massive waste, and would probably leave a lot of players royally ticked at Beth for (in effect) making promises they couldn't keep (based on threat level and foreshadowing).

Again, I think that the devs can put the Thalmor in at least another two games and still give us actual, meaningful victories over them in each of those games. Now that the Skyrim project is ended without that same kind of meaningful blow, however, the question remains, "Will they?"

Did Oblivion foreshadow Skyrim? I played that game a lot and I don't remember any blatant references of what was to come (that actually did come true) but I assume I'm missing something lol

Not a bit I feel. The same can be said about Morrowind to Oblivion, but there was the "The princes are impostors" plot that could be wanked into Cyrodiil. Ultimately had nothing to do with what we got however.

Wasn't there that guy in one of the Morrowind expansions that basically laid out the entire Oblivion plot line though? I don't think there's anything like that in Oblivion referencing Skyrim

As of Oblivion, the only real whiff of the Thalmor we got was the rumor about syndicates of wizards leading a boycott of Imperial goods. Aside from that, the Thalmor really didn't get expanded upon until the Keyes novels.

Well when you think about it, the storylines don't exactly have to follow a prophecy.

Except the games are called "The Elder Scrolls"

I wouldn't be too shocked if the next ES game starts perhaps less than a decade after Skyrim, but deals entirely with the war between the Empire and the Thalmor.

I say this because I think the decision to abruptly stop development on Skyrim (well it seemed abrupt to me) was based on the fact that they could do a better job with the Great War on next-generation systems. So they could either create an underwhelming experience and sell it as Skyrim DLC, or they could make a new game for new systems and sell it as a system launch title (ideally).

Anyway I think it's too good an event to pass up. Two giant armies, dragons, yeah, why not?

If their recent registration of the Redguard trademark means anything, perhaps they'll hold this game in Hammerfell, which is a fine idea considering the Redguard aren't terribly interested in having these two factions there in the first place, much less at war with each other. And that extra layer of plot could only make things richer.

There were several foreshadowings to Oblivion in Morrowind. Caius Cosades said "When the Emperor dies, nine hells are going to break loose." Could be a reference to the succession controversy however, but I like to think that it could have referred to the Oblivion crisis. Eno Romari in Mournhold also had some interesting words to share.

Finally, as you mentioned, in Bloodmoon, Geirir the Mumbling's companion skull apparently gives us this:

Bethesda later expanded on it to this, revealing the entire prophecy:

I think what Crackers is saying is that the prophecies we're working with in each game are made up as the series goes on. Which is one reason that I give the idea of there being "nothing more to do" because of the Last Dragonborn prophecy very little credence.

As for the foreshadowing, I admit that my copy of Morrowind does not include Bloodmoon or Tribunal. I thought that Uriel's death would lead to riots in the streets (to say nothing of Morrowind rising up against the rump of the Imperial Legion left behind), and was quite disappointed to find that the devs had completely ignored this beautiful lead-in for something along the lines of, "The demons of Hell are here! Fight them off!" (We've seen this kind of thing before, haven't we?)

Well the death of his sons probably ended the previous succession controversy, if nothing else because there was no succession to argue over.

Obviously you play as a fugitive and never get anything done. Teaches you to play as a filthy outsider.

I'm sure that any backstory for your character, regardless of race, will have you being shipped to Summerset from outside the AD. And I'm just as sure that the Thalmor would be able to spot an outsider as soon as they step off the ship, again regardless of race. It'll be Morrowind all over again, except this time being called an "outlander" or something similar will actually mean something.

Am I the only one who doesn't want to see the Thalmor in the next game? Don't they do a huge time skip in between each game? It would be sad if the Thalmor were still a problem. I want a new better threat that comes from a race outside of the ten playable races. Like an akaviri invasion or something based around the return of the dwemer. The second idea is dumb lol but idk! Just something unexpected.

Nope. Not always. Oblivion was less than ten years after Morrowind.

Yeah. Arena to Oblivion was only a few decades total. Encompassed the last years of Uriel Septim VII's reign. Aside from Redguard (which took us back to Tiber Septim's conquest), Skyrim is the first one to take such a drastic time leap. I really hope they avoid doing that in the future, since it prevents us from taking a good long look at a given time period.

Timeskips also force us to act like idiots in front of NPCs when we're asking for basic information about the recent past. "Who are the Thalmor?" "You frakking idiot, have you somehow forgotten the Great War?"

Now I want a Thief-type game set in Alinor...

I agree. None of our Skyrim characters should have any excuse as to why they don't know what the Thalmor is, and what the Great War was. It's almost as bad as our Nord characters not having the basic smattering of knowledge about their own homeland. "Er, Ulfric, I'm a Nord, but what's the meaning of giving me this axe?" "You stupid idiot. It's Nordic tradition! How can you not know the traditions of your own people!? What's next? You're going to ask me about the Throat of the World and the Greybeards?"

EDIT: I hope we'll deal with the next Great War in the next Elder Scrolls. They spent all of Skyrim hyping up the Thalmor, and making it damned clear that the next Great War is coming soon. It would be a real damned shame if we can't get involved.

My idea for a setting was black marsh. I'm not super well versed in the lore but there are some interesting stuff about it. Swamps and dense forests for stealth/ guerrilla warfare. I was thinking they could introduce boats and like idk vine swinging maybe? There's that big prison. There's an underground city or something. And I think I remember reading they've been invaded by the akaviri before. But the Great War would be cool too

Putting us in the Black Marsh would allow us to look into the Argonian side of the Red Year and subsequent Morrowind invasion, at least. It would also allow us to see if there are any more Thalmor plots spinning on that half of the continent. I don't think any game there could possibly be completely removed from the Thalmor threat regardless, with Elsweyr only a stone's-throw away from the western edge of the province.

Still, it would be a much more tangential connection to the big issues, and I don't think that a lot of players would be all that thrilled to be doing something piddly and small-time when there's a cold war freezing just outside the borders that, as usual, we can't cross over.

I could only imagine the fan rage if the next game was set in Black Marsh but it was literally during the second great war but because Black Marsh is independent the war doesn't really effect them so the player character is stuck talking to lizards and trees while men and mer are killing each other on a massive scale.

Don't give them ideas! If they have a legitimate reason to keep us out of the war, they might just take it for the sake of "subverting expectations"!

They could continue the series as "Chronicles of Tamriel" or something like that. I don't know.