The cannon ending of Skyrim's civil war?

[Skyrimfloo]

I'd say they other races just see them as pretentious ego-maniac assholes who think they're the Divines' gift to Tamriel. Which is basically how they are portrayed in the game. If they're so old and so wise, they worked really hard to avoid the inherent maturity that such age and wisdom usually entails, lol.

[Epic Gamer Frey]

 

Hmmmm /cough Didn't Bretons live in the Reach? Wonder what happened to them? Ohh that's right, Ulfric convinced the Empire to kick them out... Segregation in Windhelm... Stormcloaks openly saying "Skyrim is for the Nords"...

 

The Markarth Incident

In 4E 174, during the Great War, many of the outer provinces were abandoned by the Empire. The Reachmen long held that they were the true owners of the Reach, and for centuries begrudgingly accepted Nord rule.^[1] Seeing the perfect opportunity, a group of Reachmen rebelled against the Nords and captured the nearly undefended city of Markarth and all of the Reach in what would become known as the "Forsworn Uprising", creating an independent kingdom.^[5] According to Arrianus Arius, they administered the kingdom relatively peacefully, with only a few of the harshest Nord landowners put to death. After two years, their experiment with independence seemed largely successful, and the leaders of the Reachmen were beginning the process of seeking recognition from the Empire.^[5]

In 4E 176, desperate to retake the Reach, and with no Imperial Legions available due to the Great War, Skyrim enlisted the aid of a Nord militia led by Ulfric Stormcloak to retake the Reach by promising them free worship of Talos. In that year, the Nord militia successfully drove the Reachmen from the city of Markarth and reclaimed the Reach on behalf of Skyrim.^[5] Although Jarl Igmund claimed that the leaders of the Uprising refused their offers of peace, according to Arrianus no such offer was ever made, as Ulfric Stormcloak not only had anyone associated with the Forsworn executed after they surrendered, but also had anyone else executed without regard to race, age or gender if they had failed to assist the Nord militia in its campaign against the Forsworn.^[5]

 

http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Lore:Forsworn#The_Markarth_Incident

 

 

Looks like IGMUND is to blame.

 

and this "according to Arrianus" thing. Doesn't mean it is fact.

 

 

and about the Dunmer in Windhelm.

They where there BEFORE Ulfric was Jarl! He wasn't even born when the Dunmer came to Windhelm.

Red year was 4E 5. Whoever was Jarl (Or High King) of Windhelm was the one who gave the Dunmer part of the city and let them live ther tax free. 11 years later the High King gave the Dunmer the island of solstheim. Nords giving an old enemy an island. Nords giving an old enemy part of the city tax free. And they get called Racist?

 

Is Ulfric more than 196 years old? Nah. So he isn't the reason Dunmer are in the grey quarter.

 

 

oh and Dunmer or Altmer are competing for the #1 spot of most racist race in Tamriel.

 

 

Dunmer are my 2nd favourite race.

[afa]

The funny thing about TES lore is that if you read enough of it you begin to notice quite a few contradictions here and there.

...Realistically speaking it is probably that way because there's low number of lore that is set in stone to start with especially regarding the future of the series. Loose lines, non descriptive text, open ended stories are easier to bend and shoehorn into whatever direction the next game(s) need to take rather it is due to developer's desire, technical reason, focus test, or flavor of the month/year.

Plus you can always pull a rabbit out of the hat about the "real truth" of something and make the main character seems special since s/he knows the "real truth" as oppose to everyone else.

 

 

The part i struggle with is: If Bethesda were to make the next game revolve around a "Dominion aggression" plot, then where would they place the game?

 

How about Summerset itself? If there is a resistance plot, where better to hatch it other than at the heart of your enemy? Where better will you find your key targets all within reach?

Anywhere is fine really, IF they really want to dive into the Dominion aggression plot heavily since the aggression can happen pretty much anywhere (more on the IF part later...)

Summerset is a fine choice since it also follows the somewhat loose one landmass per game policy.

However I am not oppose to having a game set in multiple landmass as well...especially for land masses that might not be interesting enough to stand on its own to support an entire game.

 

Now the question is if the next game is even going to have Thalmor playing an important role.

From a gameplay perspective the Thalmor is just a monkey wrench created for story telling in Skyrim. They exist to give the story a little more flavor and an extra layer of consideration for the player, and sort of set a extra layer of tone for the world. You can even argue that they exist just so we can have a civil war in Skyrim.

To argue that there might be a different side to the Thalmor is rather premature, maybe there is, maybe there isn't. That's not their purpose. The role they play in this game is one of an exterior force that has weaken the Empire so it gives room for Skyrim to rise, and at the same time is technically oppose to both the Empire and the Stormcloak.

 

Subsequent game can easily write them off completely, have them play a less role, or have them play an even larger role depending on whatever direction Beth choose to take:

 

The Civil war is in Thalmor's interest, in a sense you can argue that whoever wins they lose.

A united Empire means Empire gets to regain its strength and buys its time.

Stormcloak victory means there's now officially a new thorn on Thalmor's side with the Empire able to cut off throwing resources towards Skyrim and focus on buying time with Skyrim also playing the build up game, while both the Empire and Skyrim turning a blind eye towards each other even though they are "enemies"

Either way can go into Thalmor losing favor within their own Dominion and eventually everything dials back down. That's how politics works anyways.

 

On the other hand...

A united Empire means Thalmor now has its influence across all of Skyrim

Stormcloak victory could mean an even more divided Empire where both pieces are weaker than its sum which is good news for the Thalmor

Thalmor goes into aggressor mode taking over all your kids all your wife and that's where the next game begins with you having to sort everything out.

 

Or everything can stay the same with Skyrim sort of not happy with the Empire and Thalmor with the Thalmor watching over Empire's shoulders cause no one has been able to gain any advantage over time. And then a new threat shows up.

 

Video games story y'all!

 

Unlikely you will get to play as the Thalmor tho since that will be weird playing as a non elf...

Would be interesting tho if you can play as the Thalmor to take over everything in the next game then the next next game having to undo everything.

 

Also about Zenimax and Bethesda, Zenimax is the parent company, they own Bethesda Studio so yea they can pretty much tell Beth to do whatever the hell they want. But considering the success of Skyrim and Fallout it is probably in both's interest to keep working on those. ESO is developed by Zenimax online studios (also own by Zenimax obviously) not necessarily Bethesda. Different team working on different things probably. Boring semantics. Think of it as ESO to buy time for Beth to work on FO and TES will probably makes you happier.

[Forgotten1337]

 

Now the question is if the next game is even going to have Thalmor playing an important role.

From a gameplay perspective the Thalmor is just a monkey wrench created for story telling in Skyrim. They exist to give the story a little more flavor and an extra layer of consideration for the player, and sort of set a extra layer of tone for the world. You can even argue that they exist just so we can have a civil war in Skyrim.

To argue that there might be a different side to the Thalmor is rather premature, maybe there is, maybe there isn't. That's not their purpose. The role they play in this game is one of an exterior force that has weaken the Empire so it gives room for Skyrim to rise, and at the same time is technically oppose to both the Empire and the Stormcloak.

 

 

I have to agree with afa on this point.  The Thalmor portrayed in Skyrim are basically just an evil group of string pullers that basically have little to no effect on the end game.  The likelihood that the next game will place the Thalmor into a position of significance is extremely slim, due to the fact that the Thalmor were basically designed to be hated.  I would venture a guess that if you were to poll skyrim players, approximately 80% would agree that the Thalmor are hated to some degree; whether it be as an annoying pest or as a group of Hitlers. 

 

The fact that there's so little interaction with the Thalmor outside of one main story quest and one or two side quests really doesn't give them much of a leg to stand on.  Also, if you take into account that Bethesda has added large chunks of time in between the chronological start of each game (at least going back as far as Morrowwind anyways), the Thalmor may not even exist at that point in TES history.

 

From a design standpoint, making TES 6 with the Thalmor in an important role doesn't make any sense.  The best they could hope for is a spin-off game like Redguard.

[Epic Gamer Frey]

 

The best they could hope for is a spin-off game like Redguard.

 

TES Adventures: The 2nd Great War (or whatever).

[sammythesquirrel]

LOOK ITS ME THE OP!  lots of interesting discussion and still i don't see anyone putting forth the thing i think is most likely although jexxam came close, well sorta.

cannon ending is a "new talos"  explanation as folows:  Depending on the choices made by the pc you become the leader of every major faction in skyrim,  are second only to the jarl of each hold in power and influence with the locals, and are the greatest master of the voice(the grey beards don't actuality count)since tiber septem. And, finally, you have the loyalty of not only the 3 dragons you encounter during the game,  but every dragon left alive  at the end of the main quest. After you defeat alduin hails you as thuri, a word that means lord, so you basically rule skyrim in everything but name anyway and you have the allegiance of group of creatures that can (from a lore standpoint) only be killed by you.  long story short you follow in the footsteps of tiberseptim and conquer all of tamriel, AGAIN!

 

 

 

Edit: and lets not forget the deals for power you might have made with the daedra in exchange for weapons armor and powers beyond what mortals may weild

[Epic Gamer Frey]

LOOK ITS ME THE OP!  lots of interesting discussion and still i don't see anyone putting forth the thing i think is most likely although jexxam came close, well sorta.

cannon ending is a "new talos"  explanation as folows:  Depending on the choices made by the pc you become the leader of every major faction in skyrim,  are second only to the jarl of each hold in power and influence with the locals, and are the greatest master of the voice(the grey beards don't actuality count)since tiber septem. And, finally, you have the loyalty of not only the 3 dragons you encounter during the game,  but every dragon left alive  at the end of the main quest. After you defeat alduin hails you as thuri, a word that means lord, so you basically rule skyrim in everything but name anyway and you have the allegiance of group of creatures that can (from a lore standpoint) only be killed by you.  long story short you follow in the footsteps of tiberseptim and conquer all of tamriel, AGAIN!

 

http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Lore:Shezarrine

 

Dovahkiin is possibly the N, which completes Lorkhan.