So Cyrodiil can't get along with another nation even for common purposes, unless it has its boot on its neck?

Uh... they purged the country of imperial influence and any Argonian they deemed too "imperialized" and then retreated to the inner swamps except for the expedition to pound on the Dunmer. They have no trade relations with anyone as far as we know. One shipment of elven (or daedric) weapons was intercepted on the way there, presumably from the Dominion, but we don't know if that was a Thalmor bribe or if it was actual trading.

The same pointlessness of relying on the empire, then.

Pretty sure you know I'm talking about Ulfric.

The Dominion isn't as strong as everyone makes them out to be. They lost both wars. They lost the "Great War" because they had to retreat back to their isles.

They lost the war in Hammerfell 5 years later.

Everyone makes the Thalmor out to be this unconquerable force because of their extermination teams etc. They've already been beaten once, the only way to seal that deal is to cooperate with each other like we originally did and rebuild so we're ready.

Instead people are starting Civil Wars.

The Dominion lost the wars but they're clearly winning the campaign.

What does that tell you?

That goes both ways on the civil war front. But you're right about the rest. Thing is, Mede put them in a better more dangerous position with the WGC, and it in turn made a civil war inevitable in my opinion.

If it wasn't for Mede they would have won the war. Mede makes the hard decisions. He shouldn't have to prove himself after he proved himself on his abandonment of the Capital and the following recapture that ended the war.

Had they not retreated it would have been game over. All this talk about how Mede II svcks is just ridiculous. Anyone reading the actual true events should realize the dude is a great tactician. I don't see how they could have been in a worse position than almost being completely obliterated up until due to Mede II they were able to reconquer and force the Dominion to sign a peace treaty.

Mede is a COWARD. It's his fault the AD lives, because after the Battle of Red Ring, the IL could have easily pushed into the SI and ended the war, but NOOOOOOOOO LET'S LET THE ELVES LIVE AND DESTROY THE EMPIRE THERE'S TO MUCH BLOODSHED OOOH NOOOOO LET'S LET THEM RULE OUR LIVES!!!!!!

That reasoning works both ways. They might not have been in such a weak position if Mede hadn't ignored the Blades' warnings and isolated himself so much. The picture we have of the Medes is that they either don't or can't attend to much outside just keeping Cyrodiil together. Everything happening outside of the sphere right under their noses takes them by surprise. They misjudged the Dominion, and obviously they misjudged the Nord rebellion or they wouldn't have committed to it. Mede shows up in Skyrim because his cousin is murdered, but he couldn't put in an appearance to reassure his "strong arm" about the WGC?

The fact that his desperation move to abandon the Imperial City worked goes down to the Nords. They're the ones that held the city as long as it held out, and their reinforcements saved his ass when he broke out.

I don't think so:

"Much of what is written in this book is pieced together from documents captured from the enemy during the war, interrogation of prisoners, and eyewitness accounts from surviving soldiers and Imperial officers."

K, now read this.

"In 4E 174, the Thalmor leadership committed all available forces to the campaign in Cyrodiil, gambling on a decisive victory to end the war once and for all. During the spring, Aldmeri reinforcements gathered in southern Cyrodiil, and on 12th of Second Seed, they launched a massive assault on the Imperial City itself."

Now, there's no way survivors or eye witnesses could know the info in the second quote, so that means they HAD to have gotten the info DURING the war, as the book said they did, because that is the only time they'd have access to prisoners, and that's when they would have discovered their documents. This means the Empire KNEW how weak the Dominion was and they still caved.

Besides all that, what Imperials consider great tacticians is funny. He decided to fight instead of dying trapped in his city. Good, he has common sense. But if he was such a great tactician, he wouldn't have won the war and handed the Thalmor the prize money afterwards.

Handing them prize money? Why because they outlawed Talos worship? Similar concessions were made when Alessia conqured Cyrodill in the 1st place. It's just that it was the other way around.

You guys are under the impression it seems that Mede II didn't expect to have to fight another war. I'd sacrifice a religious deity so that I could rebuild my defenses from complete extermination, wouldn't you?

Nope. The only entity capable of defeating the Dominion once and for all is a united empire. The Stormcloaks are traitors and nothing more than a tool being used by the Thalmor to weaken the empire further and split Tamriel up into single nation states that it can easily pick apart one by one once it rebuilds its strength.

FOR THE EMPIRE!

Hell no, especially when it isn't necessary and I won the war. If the Thalmor could finish them they would have. They couldn't afford to send more men if Hammerfell was still with Cyrodiil, they sent all available forces, meaning all that was left was the force that fails to take Hammerfell and the people back home needed to retain order.

And I called it handing them the prize money because the Thalmor achieved everything they set out to despite losing the war. Thanks to the WGC. If Mede refused it, the Thalmor and Empire would have a similar situation to Korea.

No. Especially when the enemy really, really, really, really wants me to.

Then I'd start to ask myself http://www.imperial-library.info/content/forum-archives-michael-kirkbride.

(scroll down to Altmeri commentary on Talos)

Anyway you already said they had won. What Mede did was snatch defeat out of the jaws of victory. Even if he felt he had to, he must have realized his mistake by the time Hammerfell fought the Dominion to standstill. Unless his political position is just so weak that he couldn't fight even if he wanted to. You recall from The Great War that his advisors didn't want him to fight in the first place.

A 'United Empire' consisting of Cyrodiil, possibly Skyrim and High Rock whose Emperor has just been assassinated at the order of an unknown cause and is now hated by nearly all of Tamriel.

If we go by the recent implications from MK's PSA, things are going to get ugly for the Empire.

To be fair, if Beth raised the magic defence cap beyond 85%, the Thalmor would soon perish.

If you think about it on the surface, perhaps, but Vsions said they "have earned their fate" hinting to doom for them. If MK is serious about that post, he probably means their goal is something that would have naturally occurred on its own already. That or that they'll find a way to leave the mortal plane some other way.

In that "Ask me anything" thread, right? Which page? I'd like to see for myself.

What happened to the Imperial City and the Blades during the Great War wasn't ugly? If that's the case, I'd hate to think what is!

Wait what? I'd like to see this so all the Imperial supporters can see how much their "great" Empire is about to get trashed even more than it already has.

Its nothing Empire specific at all:

http://4x.reddit.com/r/teslore/comments/1pv78e/ask_michael_kirkbride_anything_the_aftermath/

Would you care to offer some insight on what a more accurate aspiration for the Thalmor's realization of their goals would be, insomuch as it's even possible to write in a sufficiently concise and cryptic manner for an organization that operates on bureaucratically-saturated information overload in more or less everything they do?

The Thalmor is easily the most dangerous organization in the Aurbis. Moreso than Talos.

They cannot be understood. They are the Other and they hate everything that even smells like mortality.

And they're going to win in the end.

MK

I got vikingd! Yea it doesn't sound any better for the other factions or provinces either, but since the Empire seems like the Thalmor's main target at the moment I think it's likely they'd be the first to feel whatever the Thalmor have in store.

Still as it's been mentioned we don't know how seriously we should take Mk's statement, just wanted to point it out.

Oh that, yes I saw that on Reddit a few days ago.

Sounds bad for everyone.

But for some reason I feel its like the story of Vernaccus and Bourlor.

I agree, inevitable change of the world more than likely.

When it comes to the Thalmor, one has to realize that the War never truly ended, and "round two" is not actually round two.

The Thalmor are winning the war because they tricked everyone into believing the war is over when it is not, just now a shadow war.