Everyone is denying the Forsworn freedom. The Forsworn are like the Khajiit here, everyone hates them, not just the Stormcloaks.

Even Solitude doesn't let the caravans in.

Edit: IIRC, the Forsworn preform human sacrifice. They also attack anyone they see. The Forsworn deserve to be destroyed (not all Reachmen are Forsworn, either).

Yeah the forsworn sacrifice people, perform rituals which remove put them under the command of hagravens, and generally murder all non-forsworn. They aren't a nice bunch, and they definitely don't want to just get along.

They're like all violent isolationists then. Who would've thought that they'd still be alive and fighting into the 4'th Era. They get their asses kicked every time they're mentioned in history.

The major flaw here: the Empire has to uphold the White-Gold Concordant which prevents Talos worship (and allows the Thalmor to enforce said ban). In the Elder Scrolls, if nobody believes a god is a god he ceases to be a god. This is a key step in the Thalmor plan to end the world and kill all humans.

Supporting the Empire is to support diecide, genocide, and armageddon, all at once.

It's really a very simple choice.

Not quite. Talos worship was never wiped out prior to the Markarth Incident, and it won't be even if the Empire control Skyrim. It's heavily implied that even many Imperial supporters still worship Talos. And even if somehow the Thalmor were able to stamp it out and remove Talos from godhood, the only way they could prevent Talos from coming back would be to ensure that they're never caught breaking the terms of the Concordat.

Also, while I understand they wish to avoid a Stormcloak victory, it is also known that the Thalmor's strategic goals would be hampered by the Imperials winning the Skyrim civil war any time soon.

Wrong....Plain wrong.

The Thalmor are coming back to fight No matter what happens.

Their strategic goal is to eliminate man as a factor and enslave them once again like the days of old


They will either pick off weakened small nation states in Tamriel one by one, or they will face a more formidable united empire.


Either way The Thalmor are coming back for war. This is just the calm before the storm

Thalmor goal is to not enslave man but to uncreate Mundus; they want to be essence of god again.

That say, removing Talos out of worship is more of a revenge that the Thalmor do not want to worship a Man-God that kick the Altmer's ass with Megatron at the end of the 2nd Era. Its witty, but memories engrave hard for generations.

Beside, no one was worshiping Talos in High Rock/Northern Hammerfell during the Third Era before the Warp in the West.

Enslavement is not on their mind at all. Nor is the removal of Talos a simple revenge. Talos is part of what keeps mundus going.

Lets face it if the empire does magically gets its act together will it be able to get past the thalmor navy which during the septim empire was called the best in the empire and due to the thalmors stance now imagine how more powerful its navy is. and skyrim and hammerfell may have good sailors but on the sea Altmer mages are more powerful and probably able to whip a storm or two to disorganize the main fleet allowing easy pickings on the small groups of ships,then with most of the invasion force lost at sea the empire is going to be very weak on the land and with the thalmor having probably hardly lost a fraction of its troops would wash over tamriel putting women and children to the sword then using the force of its inquisition, wiping out the remaining pockets of resistance leaving its rear secure, allowing it to put more troops on the front line and thus defeating the morale of many of the troops some going into suicidal charges against an enemy that with one wave of their hand burn,freeze or electrocute them weaking the enemy even more, that is how the thalmor works divide and conquer the way of caesar.

This is exactly why the altmer won the great war and destroyed all of humanity. Because no one else stood a chance against their apparent godlike abilities.

Where in the Seven Hells is that quote from?!

http://www.imperial-library.info/content/forum-archives-michael-kirkbride. Section 2. It was later corroborated by another dev post in "http://www.gamesas.com/topic/1249697-on-boethiahs-summoning-day/"(The Talos fortifying the wheel part.)

edit: Link added for convenience.

This is debateable. Historically the Mer have NEVER attempted to eliminate man, ever. In the time of the Ayelids they enslaved humanity until alessia rose up against them


When the Aedra were created they left loopholes to ensure that Mundus persists...Dragonborn is one of those

How do you know the Thalmor's knowledge is common knowledge? For all we know, Men weren't wiped out before because Altmer, perhaps, didn't know that's how you do it. Despite what their fans imply, Altmer aren't single-minded driven organisms. They have jobs. They need to feed their families. Most don't have time to study "How to Blow Up Mundus 101." The Thalmor is a fanatical, minority organization.

The Thalmor are not the Aylieds. The Aylieds weren't even Altmer.

But that's exactly what they're trying to do now. And I'm pretty sure you're wrong anyways. Even if you're right, it doesn't prove anything. Things don't always have to be as they were in the past.

Especially since the great mythic projects of the Merethic were the towers, weren't they? A lot has happened since, most notably perhaps Talos.

I have to wonder though, is that stuff MK posted about the Thalmor also what everyone else at Bethesda agrees they are?

Note also that actually slaughtering humanity to extinction would probably not be neccessary. Once all those things keeping them clinging to possibility are gone then the thalmor could just stop their remaining pets from breeding.

Has MK posted anything directly about the Thalmor? I think we've just been seeing the Thalmor as agents of the threat Nu-Hatta warns of in the Nu-Mantia Intercept.

Within TES V, we have Esbern commenting that the Thalmor want the world destroyed, but on their terms; we have Ancano, a ranking Thalmor wizard, boasting that he can use the Eye of Magnus to destroy the world.

As far as I know, the http://www.imperial-library.info/content/forum-archives-michael-kirkbride post does seem to be from an Altmeri perspective, but was never directly linked to the Thalmor. I believe the lore forum drew the connection when it was made known that the Thalmor were behind the banning of Talos worship. The http://www.imperial-library.info/content/dominion-prism-textract is the only Thalmor-specific piece of lore MK has given us that I'm aware of.

*snip*

Stormcloaks.

I'm aware of all this, it just seems like wasted potential. Look at Winterhold, it is said that the Dunmer brought with them new ideas and philosophy, enriching their culture and Nordic culture. Its not impossible for them to get along. In fact, everything about Winterhold was awesome; but they decided it would be a good idea to throw it in the ocean. Wreaks of time constraints, if you ask me.

No.

Go find one Imperial soldier who does not hate the Thalmor, and who does not know that the Empire will attack the Thalmor as soon as Skyrim is stable, and I will make glorious love to your fireplace.

Imperial Soldiers are one thing, their the ones that get down and dirty. I'm more worried about the nobles of Cyrodiil. There's little doubt in my mind the Thalmor are lining their pockets with gold for their affection, and to potentially weaken the empire for great war 2.0