Hmm. I don't have that impression from how they are in Skyrim. Though lore is not my strong point (or even my interest...)

I figured Tosh Raka wouldn't side with the Thalmor, but rather with Alduin.

Auri-El (King of the Aldmer): The Elven Akatosh is Auri-El. Auri-El is the soul of Anui-El, who, in turn, is the soul of Anu the Everything. He is the chief of most Aldmeri pantheons. Most Altmeri and Bosmeri claim direct descent from Auri-El. In his only known moment of weakness, he agreed to take his part in the creation of the mortal plane, that act which forever sundered the Elves from the spirit worlds of eternity. To make up for it, Auri-El led the original Aldmer against the armies of Lorkhan in mythic times, vanquishing that tyrant and establishing the first kingdoms of the Altmer, Altmora and Old Ehlnofey. He then ascended to heaven in full observance of his followers so that they might learn the steps needed to escape the mortal plane.

Ka Po' Tun is the "Tiger-Dragon's Empire". The cat-folk here are ruled by the divine Tosh Raka, the Tiger-Dragon. They are now a very great empire, stronger than Tsaesci (though not at sea). After the Serpent-Folk ate all the Men, they tried to eat all the Dragons. They managed to enslave the Red Dragons, but the black ones had fled to (then) Po Tun. A great war was raged, which left both the cats and the snakes weak, and the Dragons all dead. Since that time the cat-folk have tried to become the Dragons. Tosh Raka is the first to succeed. He is the largest Dragon in the world, orange and black, and he has very many new ideas.

Both of their respective cultures desire ascension. Tosh Raka is the Tiger version of Auriel.

except he sounds... alive and present, unlike Akatosh and Auri-El.

But their ideas of ascension and uncreation are slightly different. It seems the Dragons' idea of uncreation is only the immortal surviving while the mortal, both man and mer, are devoured by Alduin (thus for the tiger-men ascension is becoming a dragon, evading said fate). The Aldmeri idea is man being destroyed and themselves ascending to immortality. Why would the Tiger-dragons see the Aldmer as anything more than Alduin Chow with a collectively over-inflated ego? Unless of course they viewed the elves as puppets.

Why assume they like Alduin? The Tigers want to wipe out the snakes, and the snakes will follow Dragonborn (Ysmir) anywhere. Sound familiar?

"There is nothing new under the sun"?

The Altmer believe that to become gods and escape linear time, they must kill all humans. The tiger people of Akavir believe that to become dragons (that is, timeless spirits), they need to wipe out all the Tsaesci. The Nords and Tsaesci both revere the Dragonborn, and fight against the other side.

so... what you're saying is... I should recruit snake people to help me take over the world...

If it would work, go for it.

But the point is that Tosh Raka is Auriel, and the Ka Po Tun have the same goal as the Altmer.

Heh. Yeah. That was more or less my point.... there's a couple of factions out there with the same aims longtime.... and saving humanity is NOT one of them - nor is even letting humanity live in peace anywhere.

Oh !@#k, We migth have to deal with !@#$ing tiger dragons, And NAZI Elves!? Holy crap, Tamriel Could be screwed Unless the Stormcloaks and the Imperial Legion Tag team the THALMOR!!!

Edit

But do they actually believe they need to wipe out the Tsaeci to become dragons, or is it because the Tsaeci seek the destruction of the Dragons and serve the ultimate dragonslayer? The Dominion may be allies of circumstance but I feel they'd rather throw in their lot with Alduin and his Dragons, who was probably the one that their original dragon allies revered. Of course, if they arrived too late, I supposed they may ally with the Aldmeri, simply for a common short-term goal. Either that or they'd try to get the remaining dragons to work for them.

Sounds to me like the Aldmeri idea of uncreation is in fact a twisted version of the Dragons' idea, replacing "dragons" with "elves", "mortals" with "men", and "Borhamu" with "Auriel", to suit their god complexes and justify their hatred of man.

You have to connect the dots here. Dragons are basically immortal spirits who don't see time as linear. Mortal Finite Temporary are pretty much curse words to the Altmer, and that's what [censored]s with the Dragons so much. Dragons are et'ada. Altmer want to be et'ada. The tigers want to be "dragons."

The Altmer may not call them dragons, but they have the same goal. They want to be immortal, infinite, and eternal. To do this, they need to wipe out Man. Tsaesci are the Akaviri version of Men, whether they look like snakes or not doesn't matter here. Men cannot exist in any shape or form for them to get achieve divinity. Tamriel's Men need to die, and the Tsaesci need to die.

Curious how off-topic we are now, but also awesome.

As far as I know, the Tsaesci were the original persecutors. They are the ones who devoured the men of Akavir and they then hunted the dragons to extinction. We can't be sure of how the Po'Tun understand dragons either. They allied with dragons when dragons were a physical and present force, the metaphysics of everything may be may not be understood at all, or they may be understood in a way which could alter Tamriel's perspective of existence.

Beyond that, Tosh Raka's idea of dominance is not confined to destroying the Tsaesci, he does have eventual plans concerning an invasion of Tamriel. How deep is his understanding? And having achieved his own ascension, what exactly are his aspirations?

As an aside, I wonder if Akavir or further continents contain any Towers...

... I can has Akavir DLC?

do they? Perhaps. Perhaps it's less than this, or perhaps the following is part of it:

as we explained, Auri'el is the Elven Akataosh, and he led the Elves against Lorkhan, then ascended to look after the elves. Kind of sounds like Talos: leading inhabitants of tamriel to granduer then ascending to the heavens. And in this we see the cause of Talos worship being banned. The idea that mer and men can be equals in mortal existance AND divine transcendence. Whether or not it leads into underlying ethnic cleansing goals may be open to debate, but the elves clearly do not like the idea of men and mer being equals in the immortal or the mortal.

Yep. Talos mantled Lorkhan and thus Akatosh. Talos killed Wulfharth and powered Mentella with Wulfharth/Zurin Arctus' Heart. That lead the three of them to become Talos, like how Akatosh and Lorkhan are the "same" (like both sides of the same coin.)

This betrayal lead to the succesful creation of the Septim Empire, like how Lorkhan's death resulted in a succesful creation of Mundus.

I see the parallels, but Tosh Raka proved that you could become dragons without wiping out the snakes first. Even if that's still their goal. And given the Tsaeci hate the Dragons, it's not an unwise goal from their perspective. It's certainly possible that they see destroying the Tsaeci, there's not enough evidence to be sure of it.

The Altmer are a bunch of deluded mortals who wish they were gods, who took on many of the Dragons' ideas, minus the actual dragons and adopted to fit their racial views. The Dragons are actually immortal and have backing to their ideas, which doesn't stop at the destruction of man or Tsaeci, but will consume all mortality.

And Auriel proved the same. But yes, there may be another way.

One could argue that divine equality is impossible, only divine duality. Lorkhan is an echo of Sithis is Padomay in soul IS NOT. Auriel is an echo of Anuiel is Anu in soul IS. The humans may well be a reflection of, and barrier to, the Altmer.

I'm very curious about what role reluctant creator, Magnus, plays. He stradles the line between action and inaction, stasis and change and through him, the physical world is magically bent.

Oh, they don't get to rule everyone and simply demand others fight for them?

I think "kicked out" is an odd way of looking at what happened to Hammerfell. So is calling it "pragmatic." They tried to barter them off, then tried to pull out the redguard legions back to the Imperial City. It turns out when you demand loyalty but don't show it, some people have a problem with that. Crazy.

So it's okay for Ulfric to weaken Cyrodiil, which unlike Skyrim actually borders Dominion lands, yet it's not okay for Titus Mede to let Hammerfell go when they wouldn't accept peace? The reason the legion withdrew to Cyrodiil was because that's where the bulk of the Dominion army was and it had captured the capitol of the Empire. I'm not saying that letting Hammerfell go was the best move in hindsight, but I feel it's a very bad time for Skyrim to be fighting the Empire. They should wait for hostilities to reopen between the Dominion and the Empire and for such to be resolved before deciding if it's a smart move (in which case the Empire will have either led the way to victory and invalidated the Concordat or been destroyed)

And I don't recall the Stormcloaks ever caring about what happened to Hammerfell.

Mede did not allow the redguard to defend their homes. He ordered the legions back to the Imperial City after Hammerfell refused his svck-[censored] peace deal. His general had some sense and disobeyed the order.

If Cyrodiil wants Nord troops, they're going to have to negotiate an alliance. Why is this a hard concept to grasp? Skyrim has no obligation to an empire that doesn't exist anymore. They do have common interest, and when Cyrodiil stops acting like lord and master, they all can work together toward the real goal of defeating the Dominion.

They rejected the peace deal and were let out of the Empire after the legions were withdrawn and helped destroy the main Dominion army in Cyrodiil.

Half of Skyrim wants to remain with and support the Empire, and they've fought to keep it this way. This isn't "Cyrodiil vs Skyrim". This is "Skyrim vs Skyrim".