It is clear from Skyrim that at some point the Thalmor attacked the Empire itself, Stormcloaks aside.

In this we find references to "The Great War" and the White Gold Concordance, in which the worship of Talos is forbidden, perhaps to remove a rallying point...

In the prior game (Oblivion) there are High Elves, or "Altmer" as they are named. But no such thing as a huge war is mentioned - it was evidently yet to come.

I wonder now just how large a nation the Altmer may have behind them, where are they from? What is the nature of their power base? How many of them can there possibly be, and WHY above all was it necessary for the Empire to come to terms with them at all?

Can it be that somewhere in Tamriel there exists a large enough Altmer bastion that they can front an army large enough to rub the Empire itself out of existence? How can that be....

Several points come out in Skyrim that are beyond minor squabbling as to Stormcloaks -vs- the Empire. For one thing the Altmer (Thalmor) find it necessary to spy out their neighbors, and operate a fifth column among the natives of the Empire, and on the face of it I wonder what else is happening in the rest of the Imperial Provinces.

What we see in Skyrim is a backwater - what indeed may be going on in Cyrodiil at the time of Skyrim? The very heartlands of the Empire... To be sure, if such a thing as the White Gold Concordance has been shoved down the Empires throat wholesale - it must mean that the other provinces are in turmoil as well. What of Morrowind, and the rest?

To what extent and degree are the Thalmor investing themselves in what surely must be a bid to overtake all of Tamriel for their own purposes....

And who will resist it?

What can we do?

It would seem to be a world overrun by pointy eared sneak thieves...

I bet it would make for an incredible follow on game.

There actually seems to be a good amount of lore about the Thalmor, which explains quite a bit about them, so this topic will likely be better served in the Lore forum than Skyrim itself.

Aye....

There are also a lot of references to people speaking about:

"What news from the other provinces?"

To which most NPC's reply:

"Nothing I'd like to talk about..."

But some information trickles out of it.

Things like this explain a lot, and are good reads...
http://elderscrolls.wikia.com/wiki/Thalmor_%28Skyrim%29

http://elderscrolls.wikia.com/wiki/Third_Aldmeri_Dominion

And some of the lore experts here probably have even more detailed info to share or speculate on.

Thank you for those - I'd still like to root out and crush as many of them as I can find

That I will do!

~ pestilences upon the land...

NOTE: gamesas did a good job making the Thalmor despicable, I can't help hating them...

A soldiers thoughts

Now I await the day

Nurse my hurts

Sharpen my steel

The trail awaits.....

Down into the morrow

There lie things I cannae know

But I wull greet they

Whate'er shape they take

Who could know a farm croft?

Could produce the like of me..

Nor the friends

That I hae lost...

I believe it is important to understand that while ALL Thalmor are Altmer, not all Altmer are Thalmor. The best anologies I can think of is 1) the Taliban when they pretty much controlled everything in Afghanistan, and 2) The Nazi Party in the 1930-40s Germany. And probably 3) the Communist Party in the USSR. The Thalmor are the political Powers That Be in Summerset Isle, and in controlling the government, they control the Military. Of the three anologies, probably Nazis work best if you think that pretty much all Thalmor you meet in Skyrim are a mix of SS troopers with Gestapo officers. In short, we are getting a rather lop-sided perception of the Altmer as an entire race. IF the tables turn and Imperials and Nords successfully invade Summerset Isle, how much differently will they treat Altmer civilians from the way Thalmor abused Talos worshipers?

The Thalmor is an aldmeri organization which governs the Aldmeri Dominion. A federation constituted of Summerset (Altmer province), Valenwood (Bosmer province) and Elsweyr (Khajiit province).
They also have agents (elven or human) infiltrated in all of Tamriel.


The Thalmor is an old, very old organization. We can witness its birth in its actual form in ESO, 1.000 years before Skyrim. But that the birth of the current form of the Thalmor. The Thalmor is even much more older, but they had a different goal back then.

No, definitely no.

The Thalmor is altmeri in its origins, but Thalmor members are far more varied. They have many Bosmer and Khajiit in their rank. Play ESO, read the PGE3, you'll see. Even in Skyrim some Thalmor agents are Khajiit actually.

Here, a quotation of the PGE3, describing the Thalmor during the Second Aldmeri Dominion:

The new government of Valenwood was called the Thalmor, a congress of Bosmeri chieftains and Altmeri diplomats.

The Thalmor, to resume, is an Aldmeri supremacist political party. Their first goal is reestablishing the elven rule on Tamriel, like during the Merethic Era. And that is only their first goal, they have other goals, like destroying Talos, achieving divinity, unmaking the world, and other metaphysical things like that.

Where do the Thalmor come from?

Well, when a mommy Thalmor and a daddy Thalmor love each other really much...

The home province of the Altmer is obviously the Summerset Isles (Alinor). They are supposedly the direct descendants of the Ayleids(ancient Elves that enslaved the other races through out Tamriel, from before the 1st era if I'm not mistaken).

The great war started at some point after the events of Oblivion. There was fighting going on over who would be emperor. Titus Meade (the first) eventually took that position. The Thalmor invaded the provinces, fighting a war against the imperials. The cities of Leyawiin and Bravil were sacked by the thalmor. As far as I understand, Leyawiin and that lower part of Cyrodiil is now part of Elsweyr. Not sure exactly how that happened but I've seen updated Tamriel maps that reveal this.

The White Gold Concordat was a treaty between the Empire and the Thalmor, after huge losses on both sides. One of the conditions of the treaty was the banning of Talos worship.

So, sort of like Nazis of "pure" Aryan descent.

From Delphine's account of why Malborn, a Bosmer, is willing to work against the Thalmor it seemed like it was because of some purges the Thalmor conducted against the Bosmer in Vallenwood. This made me perceive non-Altmer working for the Thalmor as being agents and/or independent contractors. That is, they may work for the Thalmor rather than being of the Thalmor. [Why else would Khajit be willing to work for an elven supremacist organization?] As for the governments of Vallenwood and Elswyr, they struck me as being like the Occupier-approved governments of Afghanistan under both Soviet and American control. That is, they were technically native governments, but it was actually the Occupiers that were really in control. Also like the Vichy France government when France was occupied by Germany. (Puppet governments.)

Ehhhh. Dominion agents, yes. Actual members of the Thalmor? Unlikely. In both cases you see Khajiiti assassins, they're used in a attempt to eliminate their chosen target, and to also to obfuscate whose really pulling their string and to distance themselves in case they fail. Its the reason why the Elenwen only deigns to sign her name with the letter E as opposed to her actual name in "official" orders. They're working for them, but they're no more "real" members of the Thalmor then the Nord informant is.

Nope. The Alyeids are a just a different branch of High-Elves that took to living in Cyrodiil. In Altmeri speak, heathens.

Originally, the Thalmor was a diplomatic entity created to govern Summerset's alliance with the client states of Elsweyr and Valenwood.http://uesp.net/wiki/Online:Regarding_the_%22Fists_of_Thalmor%22. During this time period, the Thalmor was not the primary authority. The true powers were the various monarchs, kinlords, bureaucratic loremasters such as the sapiarchs, etc. The first Thalmor seems to have focused entirely on Summerset's relationship with the other two provinces and had little (official) relevance to internal Summerset governance. They publish a lot of little booklets about how Altmer should behave when exposed to Bosmer and Khajiit culture for instance. They also seem to be the local branch of government in Valenwood and Elsweyr representing their interests to the powers that be in Summerset. By the time of the PGE1 the Dominion had fallen and reformed and the Thalmor was this time a provisional government for Valenwood. Obviously for this reason it became very irrelevant after Tiber conquered the Dominion. It's not at all clear why what was left of them developed such a militant anti-Talos, anti human, eugenicist perspective (well, except that Talos/Tiber was the one who had deposed their empire I suppose but that only goes a little way toward understanding where they're coming from). Actually I guess its also possible that the forth era "Thalmor" actually developed from the military organization "The Fists of the Thalmor", which were totally unrelated. At any rate, the remnants of the organization staged a coup and took over Summerset, slaying the royal families (R.I.P Morgiah), and murdering all their opponents in a reign of terror that was purportedly about racial purity. As you can imagine, there's tons of Altmer refugees and dissidents that don't share their views. I'd love if the next game allows us to infiltrate Alinor and connect with these groups!

Political purge is quite common in any empire. As hinted in some books, Altmer are purged too. Oh, and even Tiber Septim purged dissidents Moth Priests during is reign.

You can't deduce anything with those "purge", especially when the information came from ultra-anti-Thalmor point of view.

Yes, the Khajiit we saw are thalmori agents, it's what I said.

But during the first Dominion, Khajiit and Bosmer are part of the Thalmor Council (source : ESO). During the Second Dominion, Altmer and Bosmer are part of the Thalmor Council (source : PGE3).

For the Third? We don't know. Maybe it has changed, maybe not. And personally, I don't think it has changed.

No, the Thalmor corroborate it with Delphines presence in Valenwood as well, so even with her bias, her information is more then likely accurate. Which makes sense. The Thalmor originally favored isolationism over actually becoming involved with the rise of Septim and ignored their own "dragonborn" oracle only to get stomped by the Numidium for their trouble. Their new found religious extremism and coupled with the already strained concept of Aldmeri purity makes conducting ethnic purges among their own and the Bosmer both believable and...well, quite valid. The fact that the embassy has the other members of the Dominion treated as second class citizens also gives us a peek as how these people are treated.

And what I said was being agents working for the Thalmor does not equal being actual members. The Khajiit are used in those instances because their convenient fall guys. Despite the Concordant, Justiciar's are still not allowed to flat out murder people in the streets, hence why they send Dominion agents who can be dismissed as having any connection to them, avoiding a incident with the Empire. I'm sure there might be a few Bosmer on the Thalmor (And maybe Khajiit, but the current one is stretching it), but I wager they're far and away overshadowed by their Altmeri counterparts.

The Thalmor of ESO definitely includes more than just Altmer, which makes sense because in that case they were appointed by Queen Ayrenn, who is well-traveled and practically minded about using peoples talents. It's hard to say with the third iteration of the Thalmor, mostly because they are the only "Thalmor" to govern Summerset itself, and because they are a thousand times more racist than any of the others that came before them. Even the Altmer aren't Altmer enough for them. Still I'd have a hard time believing they didn't have some turncoat Bosmer and Khajiit active in the administration of their own provinces, or as diplomats, spys, and justicars to the Empire. Governing Alinor, no way, but as an Altmer institution it's probably an absolutely enormous bureaucracy with plenty of jobs suitable for their "lower cousins" or however else they think of them.

The Thalmor of the second era have very little in common with the Thalmor of the fourth era. The fourth era Thalmor recruiting Bosmer as full-blown members is like the Nazi recruiting slavs. Even the Telvanni are mild in their xenophobia compared to the Thalmor.

That crap again?....the Thalmor in the Fourth era are nothing like the sorry excuse in ESO.And just because you're hired by them doesn't mean that you're a Thalmor.....

Sorry excuse? Trust me the Dominion quests and lore are quite good. I'm tired of people acting like its some kind of lore travesty that the Dominion isn't quite as as much of a blatant Nazi reference as the fourth era Thalmor...and generally the complaints come from people who've made assumptions without playing the game.

Khajit thalmor in skyrim? Haven't seen that yet.

You meet some in the main quest...

With regards to the OP:

Not just to remove a rallying point. The Thalmor want to return mortal life to its divine origins, and the worship of Talos stands in their way. It was in fact one of their main goals.

There are Altmer are in Skyrim too. They're the tall-ish golden-ish elves. You can play as one, and several NPCs who are not Thalmor are Altmer. The Great war took place near the end of the 200 year gap between Oblivion and Skyrim; Oblivion ends with the beginning of the 4th Era while The great War was from 4e 171-4e 175; just 25 years before Skyrim starts.

Yes. Since the fall of the Septim dynasty the Empire has been in shambles. The Altmeri Dominion re-formed and now controls not only Summerset Isles but Valenwood and Elswyr; they expanded to their ancient borders. The Great war meant a war between these three provinces and what was left of the Empire; Cyrodiil, Skyrim, Hammerfell, and High Rock. The Altmer had the tactical advantage of having prepared for the war and of starting it, as well as having pre-emptively destroying the Empire's sky networks.

Central Morrowind (the huge island in the middle called Vvardenfell) exploded shortly after the Oblivion Crisis ended. Immediately the Argonians attacked and ravaged most of southern Morrowind, although they don't seem to have conquered anything beyond reclaiming their old provinces. House Redoran seems to have control over what is left of Morrowind's Mainland, and the Dunmer have gone back to Daedra worship.

Black Marsh was mostly only in the Empire Nominally; the imperial presence felt in merely the few cities that non-argonians could possibly live in. It seceded and various factions within it destroyed the remnants of imperial power that were left. Black Marsh also had to deal with a flying mountain and hordes of Zombies, but that is a story for another time.

Hammerfell is now also independent; it was released as part of the white-gold concordant. W

We know little about the other provinces, except for Cyrodiil. You can read the books if you want (The Infernal City and Lord of Souls) and we could get you a list of in-game books that deal with the fourth era.

The Thalmor are preparing to crush the empire. Everyone knows this and they will outright tell the player. They will succeed. C0DA tells us that the Numidium is responsible for the destruction of Hammerfell, so seemingly they resist or at least avoid the destruction of Man by the Thalmor.

What can we do? We can wait for the next game. I hope it's from a perspective within the Altmeri Dominion.

Well it has a hundred years of history behind it. Many Khajiit see them as saviors:

"In 4E 98, the two moons, Masser and Secunda vanished. Within most of the Empire, this was viewed with trepidation and fear. In Elsweyr it was far worse. Culturally the moons are much more influential to the Khajiit. After two years of the Void Nights, the moons returned. The Thalmor announced that they had restored the moons using previously unknown Dawn Magicks, but it is unclear if they truly restored the moons or just took advantage of foreknowledge that they would return.

Regardless of the truth of the matter, the Khajiit credited the Thalmor as their saviors. Within fifteen years, Imperial influence in Elsweyr had so diminished that the Empire was unable to respond effectively to the coup of 4E 115 which dissolved the Elsweyr Confederacy and recreated the ancient kingdoms of Anequina and Pelletine as client states of the Aldmeri Dominion. Once more the Empire failed to stop the advance of Thamor [sic] power."
http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Lore:The_Great_War_(book)

Actually this isn't necessarily true either. Bosmer can be Thalmor agents as well, along with the Khajiit. Now they might not fill the higher ranks of the organization, but they are nonetheless Thalmor. We do not see them in an actual game, but they do exist.


_________________________________________


To the OP, here is a brief rundown.

The original Thalmor were a provincial government setup in Valenwood when the 2nd Aldmeri Dominion was reestablished. They were then an Altmeri organization (so yes, it has it's roots with the Altmer). After the fall of the 2nd Dominion to the 3rd Empire, the Thalmor pretty much became an underground organization, having barely any ties to the Altmer or Bosmer state governments. After many generations, the Thalmor themselves changed quite a bit: their ideologies, their ambitions, their goals, and their plans to achieve them. Essentially, they politically seized power of Alinor (aks Summerset Isles), Valenwood, and then later on in Elsywer through various means and established a 3rd Aldmeri Dominion. To some, it's a bit insulting for them to use such a name to call their empire, but so be it for now.

So to summarize, the Thalmor have always been a political force. Originally created for provincial rule over another territory, and then eventually became a minor political faction until recent times that by way of persuasion, deception, and overall PR hype gained favor and power.

What they were and what they have become are entirely different things, and what they created is also very different from what was something formerly of the same name.

I sure hope in the future the Thalmor are removed from power and the Dominion remains united under a better leadership, instead splintering apart.

with regards to the discussion of Khajiit in the Thalmor; remember that the Khajiit are descended from elves. I doubt the Altmeri high nobility sees any real difference between either of their baser subjects.

They typically don't. They accept them into and among their ranks, just nothing of high ranking. I'm sure though, with everything in life, there are probably a couple select exceptions.

These are the historical anologies I would use to explain it.

Somerset Isles = Germany
Aldmeri Dominion = Nazi Germany
Thalmor = Nazi Party & SS

Vallenwood = Austria

Elsewyr = Poland

Black Marsh = Soviet Union

Cyrodiil - Skyrim - High Rock alliance (or what is left of The Empire) = USA, UK and France (the western allies that became the core of NATO)

Hammerfell = Switzerland

In the after math of a great political upheaval (WWI / Oblivion Crisis - end of Septim Dynasty) , a political group uses long standing sentiment of racial purity and supremacy to seize power. (Nazis / Thalmor). They solidify power by killing dissidents and promising a return to prominence for those who are neutral. With the help of internal factions that hold to the same ideology, they annex a territory that they have long viewed as their 's anyway. (Austria / Vallenwood). Then they sign a military alliance with another nation (Soviet Union / Black Marsh) to invade the country between them (Poland / Elsewyr) . But they double cross their allies and keep the territory for themselves.

(Soviet Union / Black Marsh) take advantage of the destabilization after (WWII / The Red Year) to invade / annex territory (Eastern Europe / Morrowind). Justifying there actions by saying they only did it to assure that the atrocities of the past are not repeated.

That would make the remnants of The Empire somewhat like NATO.

Hammerfell would be like Switzerland, it considered itself independent for some time, but it took advantage of the situation. By claiming neutrality and keeping friendly relations to both sides they were able to strengthen their independent status.