By the way, first mentions of space expeditions in Mundus was not in some "MK's blabbery on forums". If you recall, Battlespire was an orbital battlestation. And space travelling was officially (oh by Lorkhan's balls!) canonized in Third Edition of Pocket Guide to the Empire.

I pretty much agree eith One-Niner. If Vivec returnsin a space ship, I will drop one of the two RPG franchises I still care for. It doesn't matter for me if its classicied sci-fi or not, it would be just stuff I don't pay money for.
I like TES for interesting lore you don't get shoved in you face all the time. I like some lore concepts, but I hate others and completely ignore them. And I don't care about Vivec, I absolutely despise the cult around him. But TES does not force all the stuff down my throat, so I'm ok with the status quo.

Problem is, average Joe and Haughty thinking folk pay both average money, but there are more Joes than Haughties.
And fans do sometimes tend to be more annoyig than Joes, not in TES so far but it happened with other franchises.

If the space ships are similar in presentation to the Battlespire then I see no real worry, it's more an advancement of magic and a twisting of the fantasy genre.
Though I'm fairly certain the 9th era is a whole other beast, but hey, you probably knew that...

Anyway, if somebody likes space TES and someone else doesn't, who gives a [censored]? And I'm not hailing others opinions as something sacred to be treasured, other peoples opinions are generally worth about as much as my ass hair, especially on the internet. If they don't like space TES and you do, move on.
Anyway, my two ass hairs on the subject: 5th maybe, 9th never. I don't want my above average fantasy setting turned into a below average pseudo-sci-fi setting anyway.

Game-wise, Bethesda want to make accessible fantasy games. They twist them up a bit to make them more exotic than DnD stuff, give them a bit of spice to make them distinctive. The esoteric lore is added on for depth rather than being the main wellspring. I'd be surprised if more than one in ten players knew or cared about the cosmology and metaphysics of TES - and why should they, it's all a matter of taste after all.

Whatever the case, I think the chances of seeing something as avant-garde as 9th Era are marginal-to-zero. Maybe - maybe - you'd see a small DLC plug-in with a quest that takes you to the future for a short time.

Honestly, with Bethesda's name becoming big. And because of the familiarity of Skyrim + it's an FPS Action Adventure RPG game, Fallout 4 will be one of the premiere games for all consoles and PC. If it is released when the new consoles come out, it will be a release title kind of game.

I just hope they don't try and dumb it down and make it COD set in the future.

SheridanR, you forget that the consummate is absolutely [censored]. If a company makes a product thats great, even if its not what the consumer thought they wanted, it will sell. To quote Henry Ford,

"If i had asked people what they wanted, they would have said a faster horse."

What about the 1st or 2nd Eras >.>?

This is why I believe an Elder Scrolls title that takes place in a far-flung, more alien setting could be possible, but not likely. While the series has always drawn on "basic fantasy" (I won't say Tolkien-esque, because they are completely different), it has always blended in it's own unique qualities. I think people could swallow something more outlandish like parts on the 9th Era in a game like this, compared to people accepting something crazy like wizard-dwarves that build rock tanks in Tolkien's universe.

Then again, most consumers that play the games may not care for the more astounding, fabric-bending lore. So while I think it would be accepted, I don't believe it would happen.

Redguard was 2nd Era.

No one knows except the devs just because there is lore doesn't mean there is going to be a game

The opposite is also true.

Is it "for?" I think it's more "about." I think that if more focus was given to the strange and wonderful, instead of having it be in the books and in references by the characters, people would buy it because fans of The Elder Scrolls are often (not always) either fans of the lore or fans of the gameplay. Lore fans would be ecstatic and gameplay fans would still be on the same page since the core gameplay wouldn't be all that much effected by it. Naturally, there would be people who hate it. These people would, I predict, say :I played it because it was a standard sword and sorcery fantasy." Just like how between Morrowind and Oblivion there was that small group of forumites who could only stand playing Morrowind if they were using spears and medium armor while levitating. To those people Bethesda can say "sorry. Only really not really because we want to do it this way."