Just wanted to share something I noticed while playing Oblivion again today. Possible foreshadowing for Skyrim and the trouble with the Thalmor. It's a convesation between two NPCs that most of us have probably heard before:

NPC 1: "They say syndicates of wizards have led a boycott of Imperial goods in the land of the Altmer." NPC 2: "The Altmer have powerful wizards. It could become a dangerous situation."

This is during the time that the Thalmor are rising to power as the ones who destory Oblivion gates on the Summerset Isles. Nothing really new, but I thought it was interesting.

That is interesting.

I remember that in Oblivion and having no clue what they were talking about, guess we all do now.

There's also at least one history book that mentions the power of the Voice, the Greybeards and Talos' ability with his Voice.

Wow. That's really cool. I remember that line. What about:
"Any news from the other provinces?"
"Nothing I'd like to talk about."
"Go on."
That conversation is still a mystery..perhaps DLC will clear it up.

nice find. I remember that convesation but now it makes sense

Surely there are clues in Skyrim about the next game that are equally vague. We'll go back and say "Oh, THAT'S what that meant!"

I still want to see dragonlings.

Yes, that's very likely. Maybe it's about Elsweyr, the caravan cats tell us about their province.

It was all for told. We should have acted, now it's too late.

The Thalmor claim they saved the Summerset Isles, but thats just it they claim it. The implication from The Rising Threat Volume II is they infact did nothing. When the Crisis ended they told everyone they saved Mer by working deep and subtle magic. From what I see they simply stole credit from Martin Septim. The Thalmor's return to power(after the fall of the first Aldmer Dominion) Occured after the Oblivion Crisis.

They claim to have save the whole of Tamriel, but I'm sure they did close the gate in Summerset Isle.

As soon as I heard about that bit of the backstory in Skyrim I remembered that line in Ob. Doesn't Oblivion also have comments about "The Nords of Skyrim"? can't remember it exactly though. It's more likely that the dev team had a few ideas of what they wanted to do after Ob, and threw in hints to some of them. I doubt it was more than an idea at the time though.

No they claim to be the saviors of Mer. They don't go so far as to claim they saved Tamriel from the Oblivion Crisis. Why didn't they just say they closed Oblivion Gates? The whole worked deep and subtle magics sounds fishy. The Altmer were on the verge of annihilation when suddenly the daedric hordes vanished and the Thalmor came forward and took credit. That sounds like Martin Septim restored the barriers thus banishing the Daedra back to Oblvion and the Thalmor jumped at the opportunity to take credit later exilng and or murdering those who questioned those claims.

What's the difference? They think elves are the rightful to rulers of Tamriel anyway.

I remember someone stating that the "Nothing I'd like to talk about."-part is usually related to the NPC's dispositions to one another, so as they don't like each other, they don't really want to talk to each other. Just from the back of my mind.

I believe that it makes more sense that the Thalmor were in fact the group that closed Oblivion gates in the Summerset Isle, than to believe that the gates were left open to destroy the land until Martin closed them all for good. Books in Skyrim, aside from ones such as Rising Threat that are anti-Thalmor, state that during the Oblivion Crisis that Thalmor rose to power due to the prestige they gained by closing Oblivion gates and protecting the land. The Skyrim Wiki even states this about the Thalmor: "They were the group of warriors that closed the Oblivion Gates in the elven lands." This description is probably derived from the books in game.
So just to clarify, the Thalmor did close Oblivion gates in order to rise to power during this time.