Do any of you think the Empire will exist in future games? I've always loved the empire but it really seems inevitable that it's going to fall.

Some Evidence being the obvious Thalmor and Stormcloaks. But also from the sounds of it Cyrodiil itself is crumbling.
Personally I think Bethesda is done with the Empire and is killing it off to make the world more chaotic.

Embarrassing Typo meant to say Kill "off" not "of"

I think war and conflict are more interesting for a game than stability and safety, so a declining empire that is struggling to survive is just perfect for Beth's needs.

I do not think they will get rid of it. They seem to have this idea that Tamriel must have an Empire ruling over it all. Why I have no idea. It would be a much more interesting place without one.

True. I've never really seen the "ruling" part, though. Only in Daggerfall and Morrowind is there a real Emperor ruling, and he's "off-stage." The Empire is never a very effective power in any of the games, although its presence in Morrowind is at least a driving plot-device.

I think the main reason for the Empire is to have a system of cops and jails to deal with Thieves and Rogues.

No. Someday the Empire will rise again, but for now, the Empire is the rebel and Thalmor's the king. In TES lore, the rebel and the king switch places.

If they ever decide to kill it off, I would miss it. I really like the Empire.

One can only hope so.

Yes this is Skyrim i believe that even if you choose to help the empire later skyrim will get free ,but in other provinces if we could find someone good enough to be the emperor i think that the empire will survive. the next elder scrolls could be you are sent to (province) and you have to find the emperor but something has happend and story beggins like always or something like that. i want another septim

In TES VI, it will be revealed that Imperials are not really humans, that Orcs are actually Klingon agents, and that the Imperial City isn't really a city at all; it's a huge starship half buried in the ground where it crash-landed prior to the Merethic Era. Your job is to find the parts necessary to make...

...the Empire Rise Again!

That would be the best game ever made.

Doubt it. There will always be some kind of Empire anyway. The Aldmeri Dominion for one. They're portraying this new Empire as more ruthless and cunning I feel, I'd like to see that taken to more drastic lengths, to distinguish the good Septim Empire from the new Mede Empire.

This is a very good idea actually.

Have you been reading http://www.imperial-library.info/content/kinmune?

Really? I was shooting for "silly."

Silly things can be interesting, especially in TES.

That's true, and it may be a reason I've stayed with these games all these years! Look at the typical Main quest, boiled down to one idea: Low-down Prisoner is the only one who can save the world from a villain so dangerous that he doesn't make an appearance until the last act, when the Hero is ready.

I think ''killing off'' The Empire seems like a perfectly fine notion. They've been causing more trouble than they've solved if you ask me.

Dunno. Really, even though the political structure is the same the Mede Empire isn't the same as the one from Oblivion and Morrowind. If it does fall, it is possible that a new one will pop up, one with mythical significance like Alessia, Reman and Septim.

Something like the Three Kingdoms era in China might be interesting. Several dynasties all claiming to be the true empire. Lots of war, espionage and diplomacy.

Not sure what the point would be. History has a tendency to repeat itself. If the Mede Empire collapses, a new Empire will just rise up to take its place, possibly after some new St. Alessia helps the humans of Tamriel overthrow the Aldmeri Dominion.

That would be cool, especially if http://youtu.be/z3qIXQCHf94

Not really. I mean the Soviet Empire wasn't replaced with a new Empire. It broke up into its republics -- mostly because they didn't have a strong national identity. The Ukranians or Georgians had no interest in the revival of Russian Empire. The Caroligian empire also wasn't a direct decendant of Rome. It could happen if the Empire has a strong national identity based on being THE EMPIRE OF TAMRIEL. Outside of Cyrodiil, it doesn't exist in that way. It's a lot like the USSR, and while the Empire might survive as a government in Cyrodiil, outside of Cyrodiil, it doesn't have enough loyalty.

I think he was talking about the game history. There have been 3 Empires in the game lore that have all been based around Cyrodiil. I agree with him in that a new leader is likely to rise up, gain the respect of the other provinces, most likely the human provinces first, and build a new empire. And even for real life, your missing out important examples like the Eastern Roman empire becoming the Byzantine Empire, which was then deposed by the Ottomans, or The Holy Roman Empire splitting into different kingdoms, and then some of its territories being reunited by Otto von Bismarck under the King of Prussia, who became Kaiser (Emperor) of Modern Germany.

None of those examples united all of Europe though, only a little slice of it. The Eastern Roman Empire and the Byzantine Empire are the same entity. It is just that the Easterns held out while the Western Empire was destroyed, and historians eventually came to call them Byzantines (but they always referred to themselves are Romans). A Tamrielic equivalent of your examples would be Cyrodiil and a few other provinces. Basically what they give us in Skyrim. A far cry from the continent-spanning juggernaut forged by Tiber Talos. Given that he needed a giant magical god mecha to do it, not to mention an uber dragon, I do not see something like that ever happening again. Unless you were referring to a new empire being just that: two or three provinces under one rule.

You may not be aware of this, but your idea of a city that has been built from the remains of a huge starship half buried in the ground where it crash-landed accurately describes http://www.wowwiki.com/Exodar to one of the most popular video games in history. Yep, no matter how silly an idea might be it can be incorporated into a video game.