Now since in Skyrim the civil war ends with the victory of one side I am wondering. What will be the state of skyrim at the next game? Clearly Beth can't just say the empire won the war or vice versa since you can pick a side in the war. So how will bethesda solves this? Are they going to do a warp of the west style situation or what?

My money is on either a warp in the north, or the outcome is moot, because the Thalmor enact their next big move in response to the civil war; and a generic outcome comes of it that could've emerged from either victory condition

A warp in north could make since because maybe the dovahkiin defeated Alduin it cause some moment in which both sides win.. (like the empire in control of skyrim while ulfric is the new king?)

Most likely the Stormcloaks and the Empire will come to a truce when they get fed up with the Thalmor stealing away people in the night. They will combine forces to throw the Thalmor out of Skyrim, and the Second Great War will commence.

It really all depends if Beth wants to keep the Empire intact.

Regardless of how the individual plot lines play out the emperor is weak. The center does not hold. The lore will be that the empire as seated in cyrodiil falls.

Definently gonna be something with the Thalmor, who wins the war is Moot, everyones gonna get curbstomped. I am unsure how the Dragons are going to playout though and a Warp in the west could very well eliminate them.

Based on the condition Skyrim was released in, I wouldn't worry about story continuity. The main quest will consist of the player handing over an item they started the game with 20 minutes in, but will never be completable because the item is impoperly identified as non-existant except in those cases where it might take up inventory space. It will be called TES:VI Wet Paper Bag and will sell 10 million copies in 2 days.

I think they're going to make a generic outcome without going into details. Maybe because of confusion regarding the dragons, the Emperor grants Skyrim independence etc.

Wow, way to turn a discussion about lore into a rant about your thoughts on the state of the the game.

I think the whole war/Thalmor/empire thing will be dealt with in an expansion. I highly dooubt they're going to drag this issue to the next TES game.
Maybe they will give an option asking you if the empire won or stormcloaks won. Maybe not though..... Who knows!

True but the one side got so weaken that it will be almost impossible for them to recover unless Bethesda performed a random event out of their ass to save them..

Should we take into account the certain assassination you enact at the climix of the Dark Brotherhood quests?

*SPOILURZ*

Would it matter? Mede II IS pretty old... he most likely had an appointed heir.

That really only applies to the Stormcloaks as the Empire has reinforcements out of Skyrim. Speaking of which, they could make it to where the Stormcloaks temporarily take Skyrim only to be beaten back later by the Empire.

I was thinking maybe the sudden loss of an emperor might be enough of a morale downer to be significant. Especially if the Stormcloaks took the upper hand in Skyrim.

I guess you're right on that. Let's see what beth will do in about 5 years from now.

You're assuming that the empire has reinforcements, and that Skyrim doesn't have any native nords left to join the cause. One rule in warfare is that occupation forces are always expensive so that right there gives the rebellion an advantage because the Stormcloaks are at home and can always find new recruits. It may appear that the rebellion was crushed, but in the real world, there would be hundreds more to take their place. Simply think of every war throughout history that involved one country ruling the other. Eventually the empire falls because of politics. The best example I can give is when the Gauls sacked Rome.

But the Empire is also at home. That is the problem with a civil war, its not an occupation so much as a rebellion. Anyone of the populace can join any side. Look at the American Civil War, brother vs brother, son vs father, it happens. In this day and age the Stormcloaks would be more akin to terrorists than anything else.

Killing a head of state doesn't usually end a conflict - it's hugely symbolic, but rarely tactically significant. Mede was a great military commander in his day, but the Stormcloak rebellion is the domain of general Tullius.

Killing a head of state is only really useful if you have an allied opposition member that you can insert cleanly who will swing the country to your side legitimately (See example: Afghanistahn, Iraq, Libya), the Stormcloaks do not have this luxury, nobody in the Elder Council (or the empire as a whole) supports them and they have no power in the Empire with which to put a sympathiser into power.

nice pun

The situation with the thalmor will probably be dlc but whichever side will canonically beat them we won't know until the next game.

Either one you side with they say the thalmor must be dealt with next once the whitegold concordat runs it course. So it wont matter whose side your on for this. I just hope the moot name the dragon born high king. Probably wont happen though.