I think the Empire should be more like the Thalmor. Deceitful and insidious when coming down to destrying an enemy. An Empire should be like an Empire. Not "good" by the misguided standards, but willing to bring order and stability, and sacrificing freedom for fear. Screw the Thalmor, bunch of elves who think themselves high when they are just a bunch of pompous little brats.

My character is a bosmer. He grew up amidst the Thalmor. He hates them. One of his first quests was to liberate the Gray-mane from one of their holds. He ran the whole way.

They are why he sided with the Stormcloaks. Without them, he would have leaned to supporting the Empire.

The Thalmor aren't a race, they are a political organization, like the Iranian government. The Thalmor are made up of elves of various types. Individually, they are no more formidable than anyone else. But they are (apparently) very good spies and subverters and their army nearly conquered Tamriel. I have to wonder though given their birth rate if they are really anything to worry about. Most of their army was killed (just like Cyrodil and Skyrim) but humans breed quickly while they breed slowly, so presumbly the armies in the empire have replenished faster. Of course we lost people in the civil war, but now virtually all the soldiers in the empire and skyrim have recent combat experience and (in my case) the Dragonborn and can call on a pet dragon, use a wide variety of shouts, and supply mythic weapons to a large part of the army.

I think the Thalmor are in a lot of trouble.

Interesting. And a very logical take on the issue.

The Thalmor, in my humble opinion, have managed to subjugate almost Half of Tamriel through subterfuge, terror, and omens. The other half is still recuperating from the Great War (or First War with the empire). And the half that is 'free', only Hammerfell is able to hold their heads up high. I'd say it's proper to dread the Thalmor, if for nothing else, for their propensity for slaughter, deception, and their real agenda.

Black Marsh would like a word with you


oh and fixed it for you

switch dopey with deadly, and you've nailed it on the head

Mostly because the Empire is run by cravens and idiots. The Thalmor are playing the classic Roman gambit of divide and conquer, getting local factions to get their fratricide on, and the nominal leaders of the Empire are playing straight into their hands. This is the classic Machiavelli recommends to weaken your enemies, and all the Empire needs to do to defuse it (in the case of Skyrim) is to drop Elisif like a hot rock and proclaim Ulfric High King. But like every rotten leader in history, Titus Mede II continues to pile on the bloodshed to justify his own horrible decisions.

Isn't this cherry picking a little? Off the top of my head I can think of a couple of major elven victories against humans:

-Clan Direnni's defeat of the Alessians in the battle of Glenumbria Moors which resulted in the destruction of the Alessian Order.
-The Chimer/Dwemer's victory against invading Nords in Morrowind which led to the collapse of the Nords' empire.

The Thalmor are using Divide and Conquer as an overlying tactic while bum rushing everybody while doing the conquering. They're about as much of a threat as a bunch of monkeys with guns...against an Empire that has no guns. The Thalmor are idiotic when conquering.

Why did the U.S lose Vietnam? Guerrilla Warfare and the fact that an overwhelming majority of the Vietnamese people hated the U.S, regardless of whether they were South or North. Who could blame them considering that the U.S used chemical weapons with no regards to who they're spraying.

The Thalmor say you can't worship Talos. That's asking for trouble from the people. Nobody supports the Thalmor except for those who are wealthy and cowardly enough to be bought out by the Thalmor.

Both the Empire and Stormcloaks can easily drive out the Thalmor if they win the Civil War. The problem is whether or not they can actually rebuild. Empire will be putting them on life support...but maybe not considering that I can conquer the Empire as Dragonborn. Stormcloaks...they're good but some of their leaders are incredibly large bums.

Ergo: The Silver Bloods

and they built a deathstar

The Dunmer's discrimination is self imposed just as their exile was self imposed (thanks to their bigoted society that failed in Morrowind). How is this discrimination self imposed? Because two model exceptions exist: Athis, the Dunmer companion in Whiterun, and the Dunmer farmer in Windhlem who owns his own farm.

These are 2 guys who believe in the power of hard work. They don't roll out of bed every morning and start their day off believing that society owes them anything. Too bad all the other Dunmer can't be more like these guys. Instead, the Windhelm Dunmer would rather lollylag around the town all day, proping up the floor and occupying space. All the while Skyrim is being ravaged by civil war and crawling with Thalmor. The Windhelm Dunmer have been obviously drinking milk for too damned long. They need to wake up and realize life is too harsh and short in Skyrim to harbor meaningless grudges.

Actually, that victory the clan scored was quite fleeting. http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Lore:Battle_of_Glenumbria_Moors

Inverse logic. It was the http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Lore:Chimerwhich weakened the Nord's control of Morrwind. This golden opportunity was what allowed the Chimer/Dwemer alliance to finally drive the Nords out of Morrowind. But nirvana didn't last long once the evil humans were gone. The Dunmer eventually ended up losing their entire province to the Argonians---thanks to their wonderfully eglatarian and open minded social caste system. Today their descendants just collect welfare and hang around the Gray Corner being complete dead weights.
And their Lucifer Proud Dwemer cousins have yet to return from whatever Oblivion plane they're currently vacationing on.

These conflicts while significant, were still just battles. (i.e. they weren't major deciding conflicts like the Great War). So while the Elves won these "battles" they lost the overall "war". The ultimate prize being the human colonization of Tamriel, with a long line of emperors (minus the current, inept Village Idiot you were cheated the pleasure of wacking in the DB questline)

Ordinators are (were) Dunmer clad in Indoril Armor.

Don't take it so literally. I simply mean they're a superpower with very racist ideals, built around racial supremacy.

You name their defeats and set-backs but leave out their victories and the way this centuries-long chess game seems to be going in their favour.

Also do not forget that the one and only reason Tiber was able to bring Summerset into the Empire was by use of Numidium, a giant time-travelling stompy robot.
That has since exploded (twice) and since the agency that used to be tasked with finding the pieces and putting it back together (the Blades) is now defunct, that robot is gone for good.

Without Akatosh's favour and the amulet of kings, The Nedes are simply doomed.

The Dunmer victory at Red Mountain gave them control of Morrowind from 1E 401 to the beginning of the 4th Era. Much more of a deciding conflict that The Great War which didn't settle anything.

By your logic then, if the Nords' loss against the Chimer was due to infighting then Alessia's rebellion cannot be a true human victory as she was also taking advantage of an Ayleid civil war (many Ayleids rebels fought by her side to topple their rival kings). And although both conflicts I listed were single battles, I still don't see how the elves lost these wars- the Direnni destroyed the Alessian Order and the Nords were driven out of Morrowind for good. Sound like elven victories to me. The fact that the Direnni and Dunmer would eventually lose control of their territory doesn't mean they lost the past wars. Because the Roman Empire lost control of Gaul centuries after they conquered it doesn't mean that the gauls won the war

The biggest problem that the Tamrielic empire faces when it comes to the Thalmor, is a lack of an intelligence gathering agency. The Blades got their butts handed to them, and the Pentius Oculatus is merely a bodyguard for the Emperor, not an infiltration and surveillance group. If the race of men are to win the next war, they need more than just the blessing of Talos and a 'few good nords'. They need to get some up to date intel on the status of the Aldmeri Dominion.

The Thalmor do have one or two additional dialogue if you are Altmer. Had a patrol say to me "Your a pitiful excuse for an Altmer, I should just kill you on general purpose." On my Khajitt they never said that line with Khajitt subbed for Altmer.

Also Diplomatic Immunity quest is easy as an Altmer. You can virtually walk through the whole place and no one cares.

To be fair the Thalmor attack on the Blades was underhanded.This is not a bad thing. All is fair in love and war.

The Thalmor have lost the advantage they had.The Khajit is out of the bag and everyone realizes they are a full on hostile entity.They now have to react to events instead of shaping them.Not what they do best.

I do not view the events in Skyrim as the Thalmor sitting back and manipulaiting events like evil geniuses.To me it is more like plan B or C that has to suceed to buy time that they need.

Just sit back and let Thalmor hubris work its magic.

The Thalmor is strong because they ruined the Empire in the last war, and the Empire is now struggling to survive with its own problems(like the insurrection in Skyrim by the Stormcloaks) while the Thalmor is rebuilding its armies and economy while spreading their influence throughout the world.


You probably won't see any major military campaigns by the Thalmor for many, many years and so don't expect to see a 'Thalmor invasion' anytime soon.

They go by 'divide and conquer'. They'll probably wait patiently around, rebuilding their army while sowing distrust, rivarly and chaos in Tamriel and pick them off piece by piece.



Also, the reason everyone hates them is because the Thalmor are a bad thing for anyone who's not an Altmer. Even worse than Ulfric and his way of treating any Nord(Ulfric only frowns at anyone who isn't a nord, but the Thalmor actively seeks the extinction of anyone who's not an Altmer)

Personally, I love them IRL, I think they're a GREAT faction, but of course my non Altmer characters hate them RP wise

Why do you believe the provinces of men will just sit back and wait for the Thalmor to do their thing?

I figure the Nords dread them because the Thalmor use magic and the Nords distrust and shun magic and feel they have little defense against them.

Personally, I don't dread them and welcome their challenges along the roads.

Is this true? If so, I better decide soon if I want to do the Crown quest.