I don't know. I'd love to have a full scale battle against the Aldmeri as DLC before the next title comes, even though I realize that's nigh impossible. During the civil war quests I had a blast raiding the forts but I was left with an.....empty feeling. Despite getting like 90-95% of the kills in each fort, it felt like stepping on mice and hearing the squeak noise. I wasn't terribly beefed up either, a level 48. Didn't even use Odahviing or storm call.

I also had an idea where (if you completed those quest lines), you could utilize the Thieves Guild and Dark brotherhood for special missions against the Thalmor. Assassinating spies and high ranking officials, stealing documents, raiding supply lines, etc.

I'm borderline a fan fict. writer >.

Actually level 48 is very beefed up (50 is the soft cap, if you didn't know), and stormcloak and imp soldiers don't scale like some other enemies. It's better done much earlier than that.

That all said, it's still lackluster. They feel like skirmishes, not battles.

From what I understand, Talos is only holding the world together and a lack of worshippers causes the world to fall apart. How can the Empire use him as a weapon?

Oh...well...I mean I didn't have any enchants, alchemy, and my smithing was at like 60. And I was rolling with a bow instead of the sword and shield on my other character. My level 81 imperial did the civil war quest last and yeah that was overkill. I just ran around the top of the fort with shield charge activated and sent soldiers flying off the top while I shouted down the rest or cut them up.

But yeah, definitely more like skirmishes.

The Thalmor know, however, that the present situation is insufficient to deprive the world of Talos. Otherwise they wouldn't have started and worked on continuing the civil war, which has in fact increased Talos worship.

Well maybe technically best defense?

I don't know how you can say that. Temples closing down and the empire putting out propaganda against his divinity- not good. Those teaser letters in the lore forum mention "the Talos cult has never been more persecuted." That was even before the events of Skyrim.


He's humanity's protector, and if the Thalmor really do intend to carry out a war against him, you don't think he's going to fight back? Whereas weakening his cult weakens him.

Celan, note that we don't know who wrote those letters. Until we do I doubt they should be used as a source.

But how can Talos actively help humans fight the Thalmor? And wouldn't it make more sense that the Thalmor are going to conquer Tamriel first and then completely eradicate Talos and his worshippers?

It doesn't really matter what Talos does or doesn't do. That kind of where the player comes in imo. I keep coming back to this, but you basically ARE Talos, for all intents and purposes (maybe not literally.. that's all up for speculation. But you do operate on the same basis. Not to mention that some of the new lore books on Talos aren't meant to be merely informative on his life. They're meant for the player to draw parallels with their own character. It wouldn't be so obscured and confusing otherwise. He was put in some similar types of situations...and the choices he made aren't determined. Just like the player's aren't). We're not the type of protagonist that simply observes and assesses things outside of us, and then sit around waiting for "someone to do something". We're the agents of change ourselves.

Secondly, we're the very defenders of the human cause, no matter which side in the Civil War you take. This is one area where you are railroaded. You will not and never be supporting the Thalmor. They are set up to be the unplayable "evil" faction. So whatever you do, Stormcloak or Imperial, ultimately leads to war with Thalmor.

First of all, we know that the Thalmor were behind the civil war. They manipulated Ulfric into rebelling, thus leading to Ulfric allowing and encouraging Talos worship in half of Skyrim. And I believe a Talos priestess says that war makes people worship more. Do you really think that people would be worshiping Talos as much as they now do if the Thalmor hadn't brought about the Stormcloak rebellion?

Second, they don't want the Imperials to win any time soon, even though it'd supposedly allow them to go back to stamping out Talos all over Skyrim.

Edit: In fact, even with an Imperial victory there will still be more Talos worship than before the war because it's doubtful that the Thalmor will be able to get rid of all the Talos worship that Ulfric stirred up any time soon. They certainly didn't do a very good job of stamping it out in Whiterun.

Edit2: I'm not saying that Talos is worshiped nearly as much as he was before the Great War, but it he is being worshiped more than before the rebellion started.

Yes? Contrary to perhaps conventional wisdom, persecuting religions does weaken them to the point that they're no longer recognizable. See Christianity in medieval Japan. Right out of Helgen you come across a massacre at a Talos shrine. There's certainly a reason why the remaining Talos shrines are either in Stormcloak territory or in very remote corners. Only the really devout are going to stick their necks out, especially with the empire sanctioning the persecution.

Whiterun is neutral and anyway we're talking about a raving man in the market square, not an official temple. You don't see a lot of people flocking around Heimskr. It can't be long before he disappears.

Whether there is more or less worship now than before the rebellion is really speculation.

Not if you take http://www.imperial-library.info/content/forum-archives-michael-kirkbride on the matter as definitive. Eradicating worship of Talos is the Dominion's first aim. The evidence in Skyrim bears this out.

Christianity didn't originate in Japan, it was a foreign religion. Talos is one of the most important dieties in Skyrim, they've been worshiping him for probably over 600 years. The Thalmor know that they can't fully wipe it out without being in direct control of the province. The Empire not only turns a blind eye to Talos worship, they deviate from their own "guilty until proven innocent" system and in fact can prevent the Thalmor from arresting somebody without sufficient evidence. I'm not trying to say that you should support the Empire or even like it, I'm just saying that the Thalmor recognize that for their plans to come to fruition, they must gain control of Skyrim themselves. Or at least gain greater power than they wield now.

Right now anyone needs to do to openly glorify Talos and denounce the Thalmor is to travel to the Stormcloak side of Skyrim, something that could not be done before the Thalmor-induced civil war began. In fact, it seems they don't even dispute the Stormcloaks' right to worship Talos in their own territory (yes it's a purely diplomatic thing, but it's still interesting that they at least pretend to respect the Stormcloaks' rule). They appear in several initially Stormcloak-controlled areas, yet never for anything directly related to stamping out Talos worship.


Given the Talos worship going on in Stormcloak territory, for it to be the same would only further indicate the sheer futility in the Thalmor Justiciars' efforts to stamp it out.

With a little digging, you find out that the Thalmor prescence in Skyrim is because of Ulfric. You'll find that a great many people still had their personal little shrines to Talos and were able to worship him privately until the rebellion. After the rebellion, the Thalmor showed up and started enforcing the White Gold Concordat by arresting and torturing people.

Ulfric's ideas are great and all, but I agree with another poster that said he's going about things the wrong way.

Personally I always side with the empire simply because the people of Skyrim I've only done the Stormcloak quest once and that's all it took. I'm a staunch supporter of the Empire now.

Regardless, during the Diplomatic Immunity quest, that snooty Thalmor jackboot from Markarth is there, and he is much more vehement and fanatical than at the Understone keep, he is clear that it is a religious war and that all the Aldmeri Dominion wants is a free shot at Skyrim, preferrably one that is weakened by war and bad foreign relations.

What makes you think they wouldn't have done so anyway? Their plan is to eradicate Talos worship. The empire just handed it to them on a silver platter as opposed to making it difficult. The Thalmor didn't really need a pretext, since the empire denies them nothing they want.

The Nords do not hate Stormcloak rule. It's divided and that remains the case no matter who you side with. On my imperial character, I have just as many people bitter at me as on my Stormcloak.

But they don't. See Thorald Grey-Mane and Tullius' determined non-interference.

You don't really see that as the Thalmor "respecting" Stormcloak rule, do you? More like they're going to die if they try anything.

I really don't understand what you're saying. You claim the Thalmor can't eradicate Talos worship because of the Stormcloaks, but that it doesn't matter that the empire is letting them try?

It's whining hand wringing politically correct comments like this which made me choose Stormcloaks. I never looked back.

I don't know half as much of the lore of TES as some people here (fascinating read, BTW), but I'd like to contribute my five cents anyway.

After much deliberation I choose the Stormcloaks in my game, because I like to consider what will happen next. The Empire has had it's chance to defeat the Thalmor and they failed. In my eyes the Empire is old and weak and, as Phaarthunax says, sometimes the old needs to end before something new can begin.
I like to imagine that the fact that the people of Skyrim managed to drive the oppressors from their land (meaning Thalmor, not Empire), will ignite a flame in the rest of Tamriel which will make all the people rise up against the Thalmor. Especially since it is a Dragonborn who fought from Skyrim to make this happen. As one poster in this topic said, this is very much history repeating itself and I like to think that this would speak to people's imagination.
Ulfric can stay on his throne in Skyrim once the fight has been fought for all I care, I like to imagine that the Dragonborn would carry on and take the fight into Cyrodiil, ending with an end to the Empire and creating an alliance of countries instead.

When the Empire wins, the same result might occur only it would take generations longer. No oppressive government has ever withstood the test of time, so eventually people will rise up against the Thalmor, but not before they've had the chance to do great damage to all their conquered territories. And they need to be defeated; there's no arguing with a faction with a religious zeal like that; believing that the only way for them to attain heaven is to kill men.

So that's my opinion. I might be totally wrong of course. In a world with so many different races there's always going to be war. People can hardly deal with cultural differences, let alone when the other has different evolutionary ancestors then you! The only way Talos brought peace is by winning all the wars. If that's what it takes, then so be it.

I feel like I have to make a guy with blue warpaint to join the Stormcloaks. Except blue warpaint looks lame in this game. Same with the teal. It's just not the right shade (like oldschool Celtic blue.. ala Braveheart). All of my characters look much cooler in red. Oh well. Long live the empire.

We don't know what happened with him. Only that they arrested him somehow and somewhere. But see Jarl Igmund and Ondolemar for a counterpoint.

I'm saying that they can't wipe it out even if the Empire controlled it. But for some reason, they started a rebellion that made getting rid of Talos worship even more impossible and possibly more prevalent, at least for the time being. But there's a reason that they started the rebellion instead of just continuing to hunt Talos worship the old fashioned way, and a reason that they feel even the Empire winning would set them back in Skyrim.

They don't need to wipe it out. They wanted to weaken Talos and mankind. And that they did.

Don't bother with Talos and just focus on eliminating mankind? You're bound to get a shezarrine to ruin everything.(Too bad for them it looks like it's happening anyways)
Don't bother with mankind and focus on eliminating Talos? Kalpa ends, and the idea of mankind and mortality continues.

I picked the Imperial side.

Finding myself in the middle of an execution together with Stormcloaks did not invite me to join their cause. I was lucky to make it out of Helgen alive. The Imperials represent the current authority and have a higher goal, both of which I find worthy to support. Stormcloaks are rebells.

And...? Tullius knows about it and the Thalmor say they'll release him if the empire requests it. Not only will Tullius not request it, he orders a cover-up.

The empire being in charge certainly makes it easier for them. Ulfric's dossier says they don't want a Stormcloak victory. They probably see a rebellion as desirable because they assume the empire will win and in the meantime they can profit from the chaos. Though we don't know that they actually did anything to start it, only that they're taking credit for it after the fact. They also take credit for hanging the moons.