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@troike

I differ from LoH a bit on the subject of the White Gold Concordat. While I agree that the Empire was negotiating from weakness, I don't think it was necessarily weaker than the Aldmeri Dominion. The Thalmor threw itself into conquering Cyrodiil and Titus's forces utterly defeated them at the Battle of the Red Ring. The cost of his victory, however, was the strength of the Legion then-mobilized in the Niben vale. The Thalmor, over-committed as they were, could not afford to negotiate at that point unless it was indeed the only thing they could afford at all. It must be the case that both sides had bled each other white.

In that light, negotiating the Concordat would be especially tricky -- how do you draw concessions when the counterparty knows you must walk away with a truce? Both the Empire and the Aldmeri Dominion found themselves in this position. The Thalmor therefore did something very clever: they made a demand that the Emperor could interpret as empty saber rattling. The ban on Talos worship would draw ire only from blowhards because after all how could you even enforce such a provision? The Emperor could sell it as the triumph of the pragmatic over the symbolic.

This is where Titus Medes II made a terrible miscalculation. The Thalmor were setting him up for the next turn of the wheel. There is no indication that either side would regain its strength substantially more quickly than the other. Open war would therefore not be an option for some time. The Thalmor needed to slow the Empire's recovery down so the Elves could re-establish the overwhelming force with which they began the Great War. The key was Ulfric Stormcloak, whom they had already captured and primed for this task.

As far as Ulfric was concerned, the Concordat came down to one provision only: the seemingly symbolic ban on Talos worship. This summed up everything for the Jarl of Eastmarch. Importantly, this was not merely a Thalmor trick -- and that is where they, too, miscalculated. But first, let's deal with the twofold failure of the Emperor: as I said, he failed both to understand what the Elves truly aimed for with the provision and he failed to understand how much he was in effect giving up.

With Hammerfall all but formally autonomous and the heartland decimated, the Legion's hope lay in Skyrim. The Thalmor not unwisely concluded that a civil war in Skyrim could indefinitely forestall the recovery of Imperial forces so long as the grievance was deep enough. That way, even if the Empire did swiftly put down the rebellion there would always be a lingering threat that would keep at least some of the Legion busy. The deep grievance they found was religious persecution.

Now, the Elves are clever indeed but they managed to get caught in their own web this time. The Thalmor machine runs on xenophobic hatred and so, however the plan was initially conceived, the elimination of Talos's cult quickly became one of their actual goals. As surely as Ulfric did exactly as they expected by bringing the religious issue to a head, the Thalmor too proceeded predictably -- arrogating upon the population of Skyrim a ruthless and haughty inquisition. From their point of view, the Ulfric strategy was paying off: the Emperor had to concede to the presence and authority of the Thalmor Inquisition, which amounted to an abdication of sovereignty.

From the viewpoint of some in Skyrim, enough was finally enough. It was at that point that Ulfric went from being a reliable if unwitting tool to a radical challenge to both side's strategies. Realizing his place in the Thalmor plots, his next move was to kill Torygg and shock the jarls into choosing sides. From the Thalmor's strategy to undermine the Empire, Ulfric forged Nord nationalism. The Thalmor, like Titus Medes II, underestimated the forces they had set into motion. Although the Nords have always been a proud people, that pride never manifested itself so powerfully. The Empire was totally untested against Skyrim, which as Tiber Septim's cultural homeland had always been one of its strongest supports.

On one hand, this might look like exactly what the Elves intended: the Empire tearing itself apart as the Aldmeri Dominion recovers. On the other hand, perhaps this is exactly the opposite: the destruction of a system that has been in decline since the extinction of the Septim line? What if the Elves' early successes actually relied on the declining institutions of the Third Empire? In Hammerfall, they had already been fought to a stand still and then driven out. How? Because Hammerfall had found its own native dynamism in autonomy. In Skyrim, the Thalmor might not find a tarpit for the Legion but instead a second front in a war suddenly turning against them.

 Troike wrote:

Right, but the whole point in signing it was to rebuild so that they were strong enough to beat the Thalmor. Again, Mede is playing a long game. They won't stay weak forever.

Time the Empire growing stronger is time for the Thalmor to grow stronger which is why they proposed the idea. It heavily favored them not the Empire in the long run. In the Time since the White-Gold Concordant the Empire has only grown weaker not stronger. Ironically the Thalmor have also arguably become weaker. Both sides got the opposite of what they were expecting XD.

Really though looking through the Empire's recent history the White Gold Concordant was a terrible treaty. The Empire still had most of its provinces at the time, the Legions had the momentum of retaking the Imperial City, and agreeing to peace on the terms of outlawing worship of a a major deity was horribly short sided. Since then, the Empire has lost Elsyer, Blackmarsh, and Hammerfell and Skyrim is in rebellion pitying Imperial resources against Imperial resources. The Thalmor are domestically weak in and of themselves but they've done a marvelous Job of weakening the Empire by a thousand cuts.

All the while the Empire is bidding its time, its people are being oppressed by a foreign power. It's not a very well played long game but then we can probably rest assured the Empire has plot armor on its side so they'll win anyway EDIT EDIT: Actually wouldn't be shocked if we got a Dragon Break on this on.

Not really. All that's been posted here is evidence of Imperial citizens being racist, while the Legion and Imperial government are most certainly not. The Stormcloak soldiers meanwhile waltz around quite openly abusing non-Nords.

The Empire never stopped or even made issue of the mass enslavement of Argonians or the prejudices against the Orcs. Equality never seems to be very high on the Empire's list of priorities. While Skyrim never characterizes the Legion in such a way, and I understand that, it doesn't really make the rest of the lore in the series disappear. And the Stormclaoks themselves don't openly abuse anyone. The Stormcloak NPC's have about all the same dialogue as the other guards. Its the people surrounding and supporting the Stormcloaks that really characterize this aspect of the movement for us. Actual Stormloak soldiers are rather stoic fellows

Sure it is. Racism? Never seems to work out too well in the end. The alternative choice, meanwhile, has a reputation for tolerating other races. Long-term, the Imperials are a far better cultural influence.

What if someone doesn't think the Empire can win? Ulfric certainly doesn't, and I doubt people in Hammerfell are holding out much hope either. The Empire has abandoned people and entire provinces to the Thalmor to bid its time. While it might be their only shot at winning long term, it can't really expect the people to stand on the sidelines and watch waiting for the Empire to come down from on high to rescue them.

 LordofHats wrote:

Before the Markarth incident, things were calm. Civil war was certainly not brewing. After the Markarth incident happened, a charismatic, popular leader began inciting rebellion and succeeded.

If you can call the Empire needing to hire a private citizen to deal with an internal rebellion that took over a major city 'calm' and if you want to look at the Markarth Incident as though it exists in a vacuum devoid of any other context. Ulfric fought in the Imperial City when the Thalmor invaded and saw what they did. He was angry when instead of fighting the Legions were ordered to stand down for the White-Gold Concordant and further angered when the White-Gold Concordant was forced against him after he fought for the Empire not once but twice to support it. Ulfric has no reason to believe the Empire can ever oppose the Thalmor. It's already been 20 years. The Thalmor still seem to him as strong as ever, while the Empire seems to just keep getting weaker.

The banning of Talos worship is definetely a short-term cause. On its own, however, it did not cause Ulfric to begin pushing for open rebellion against the Empire. The Markarth incident, the trigger, is what did that.

You have it a little backwared. Markarth is definitely the trigger but the banning of Talos Worship is more of a long term cause not a short term cause since it was an issue of tension even before Markarth. Even as a mere symbolic banning without enforcement it played a role in the Markarth Incident before and after. You can't look at the Markarth Incident as a trigger without looking at what caused it; the weakening of the Legion to the point it needed a private army to settle civil unrest, and the banning of Talos worship that the Empire allows the Thalmor to enforce against its own people.

EDIT: Actually gonna concede to Machu's post above on those points. Much better said than I.

 LordofHats wrote:
In part though my own favor for Ulfric is probably a mirror of my view that Tullius is a rather bland fellow. Ulfric has both mystery and charm that makes following his character exciting. Tullius is... Tullius.

The personality of General Tullius is a meditation on what happens when might has no choices: dogged commitment to a very technical sense of duty. Ulfric is his opposite, a meditation on what happens when a man chooses to be mighty, which is why he is ambiguous. Right or wrong, he is the man who will define this moment in history. Finally, Balgruf is poised between them: he has a choice but not the courage to take it. He's too caught up in the Imperial past to catch a glimpse of the future Ulfric can see. While Tullius has no choice and Ulfric irrevocably makes his choice, Balgruf wants to preserve his. But it's Ulfric's world now: everyone must choose.

I just love how massive and deep Skyrim debates get.

 Manchu wrote:
the elimination of Talos's cult quickly became one of their actual goals.

Oh, it's always been an actual goal of theirs. Apart from their often stated issue with a man being a god, there's also a popular theory that they're actively trying to destroy Talos, and by extension Mundas, by stopping worship of him.

 Manchu wrote:
On one hand, this might look like exactly what the Elves intended: the Empire tearing itself apart as the Aldmeri Dominion recovers. On the other hand, perhaps this is exactly the opposite: the destruction of a system that has been in decline since the extinction of the Septim line? What if the Elves' early successes actually relied on the declining institutions of the Third Empire?

I've heard this said before, that Ulfric winning could result in an improved Empire, but I just don't see it. If he wins, it's not like the Empire is going to bow down to him or he's going to be able to invade the Empire to take charge. Ultimately, it'll just be a further divided Tamriel while the Thalmor remain as strong as ever.

 Manchu wrote:
In Hammerfall, they had already been fought to a stand still and then driven out. How? Because Hammerfall had found its own native dynamism in autonomy.

To be fair, Hammerfell was fighting a Dominion that had just come out of the Great War back then. The High Elves've had some time to recover since then.

 LordofHats wrote:

Really though looking through the Empire's recent history the White Gold Concordant was a terrible treaty. The Empire still had most of its provinces at the time, the Legions had the momentum of retaking the Imperial City

That momentum doesn't count for mucb when your armies are exhausted.

 LordofHats wrote:
All the while the Empire is bidding its time, its people are being oppressed by a foreign power. It's not a very well played long game

True, but it's probably the best they could do. If they'd refused the treaty, the Empire risked collapsing.

 LordofHats wrote:
The Empire never stopped or even made issue of the mass enslavement of Argonians or the prejudices against the Orcs. Equality never seems to be very high on the Empire's list of priorities. While Skyrim never characterizes the Legion in such a way, and I understand that, it doesn't really make the rest of the lore in the series disappear.

That was probably them not wanting to annoy the locals. I never said that they were moral crusaders for racial equality, just that they were the biggest source of progress in this matter.

 LordofHats wrote:
And the Stormclaoks themselves don't openly abuse anyone.

They do. They're quite overtly racist towards Adrianne Avenicci, being reluctant to buy from her because she isn't a Nord.

 LordofHats wrote:
What if someone doesn't think the Empire can win? Ulfric certainly doesn't, and I doubt people in Hammerfell are holding out much hope either. The Empire has abandoned people and entire provinces to the Thalmor to bid its time. While it might be their only shot at winning long term, it can't really expect the people to stand on the sidelines and watch waiting for the Empire to come down from on high to rescue them.

I can understand why an average citizen might go against the Empire, sure. But as a player who can see the whole picture, I can see that the Empire can potentially win, and be in a stronger overall position because of it.

 LordofHats wrote:
If you can call the Empire needing to hire a private citizen to deal with an internal rebellion that took over a major city 'calm' and if you want to look at the Markarth Incident as though it exists in a vacuum devoid of any other context.

It wasn't exactly an internal rebellion. The Forsworn certainly aren't an internal part of Skyrim or Markarth's government. They're their own, seperate force. And I'm not looking at it in a vacuum, I've said that the previous banning of Talos worship was an important factor there.

 LordofHats wrote:
You have it a little backwared. Markarth is definitely the trigger but the banning of Talos Worship is more of a long term cause not a short term cause since it was an issue of tension even before Markarth.

I'd still call it a short-term cause, in that it's been a factor for a relatively short period of time. I'd call Nordic nationalism a long-term factor, for example. Or racial tension against Elves.

 LordofHats wrote:
Even as a mere symbolic banning without enforcement it played a role in the Markarth Incident before and after. You can't look at the Markarth Incident as a trigger without looking at what caused it; the weakening of the Legion to the point it needed a private army to settle civil unrest, and the banning of Talos worship that the Empire allows the Thalmor to enforce against its own people.

I'm dubbing it the trigger in that it was what convinced Ulfric to go out and rebel. And yes, the Empire was quite weakened, but as I've said that won't be forever.

That popular theory sounds like people are projecting D&D-type mechanics onto TES. I don't think stymieing the worship of Talos would drain his divinity. Whether he is actually divine or not, after all, is a matter of faith rather than fact.

To clarify, I don't think Ulfric would be able to found a Fourth Empire. He's a man of vision and conviction but he's no Tiber Septim. The most he could accomplish is mobilizing Skyrim to ally with Hammerfall and ultimately confine the Aldmeri Dominion to the Summerset Isles. The main hypothesis there is that the Aldmeri Dominion may have been successful because they were fighting a centralized Empire in decline rather than vibrant independent states.

As for Hammerfall, the Elves did even more poorly there than in Cyrodiil. As LoH mentioned, the key takeaway is neither the Empire nor the Dominion have recovered to the extent they might have reasonably expected when negotiating the Concordat.

 Manchu wrote:
Whether he is actually divine or not, after all, is a matter of faith rather than fact.

Not to say that that theory is necessarily correct, but it seems that Talos is indeed divine. His shrines confer a tangible blessing like any other, and we meet what seems to be an avatar of him in Morrowind.

http://elderscrolls.wikia.com/wiki/Wulf

 Manchu wrote:
As for Hammerfall, the Elves did even more poorly there than in Cyrodiil. As LoH mentioned, the key takeaway is neither the Empire nor the Dominion have recovered to the extent they might have reasonably expected when negotiating the Concordat.

Very true, but Hammerfell was fighting a Dominion that had just come out of the Great War. The Domionion may have recovered significantly since then. Or not. Suppose we don't really know for sure.

 Havok210 wrote:
So I am in the midst of Skyrim and I am torn on which faction to support. I know that High Elves have a tie to the Empire due to the Aldmeri Dominion, but is it unrealistic to have a high elf join the Stormcloaks?

Were all Southern people pro slavery? Did all Germans kill Jews? Of course not. Play what you want man, besides in the end, you're playing a video game

I don't think there is any reason to believe the Aldmeri Dominion is substantially recovered from its defeats in Cyrodiil and Hammerfall. If so, they should be attacking Cyrodiil again during the course of the game's story -- the height of the civil war in Skyrim would be the most opportune moment for them. The Elves' position strikes me as very weak, except vis-a-vis the Empire ... which in turn seems committed to the idea of Thalmor strength for the sake of maintaining Imperial unity.

Inspired by this thread, I thought about giving Skyrim another tryor rather get back into it. I installed the latest SKSE, started it up, then got the "Title Screen crash" thingy that is related to your installed mods. I'd have to go through all mods, check them, maybe deactivate a few to check which is the problematic one...yeah, screw that.

Can you just start fresh?

Ye, but that'd require deinstalling all mods (or deactivating them), then getting them back in, check the load order, check for any other conflicts, getting the DLC and savegames back in etc. Got a meeting soon, might give it a try afterwards. It's just...sigh. They release a game that is heavily dependant on mods and then don't further support implementing those.

My bet's that it's either Deadly Dragons or Wars in Skyrim that's causing the issue. Especially the former caused a lot of issues in the past despite being a darn simple mod.

What I really didn't like in Skyrim was the magic system...sure, even melee was very bland and after Dark Souls and Chivalry, it's a joke of a "system", but in Skyrim, I basically used 2 damage spells (single target / AoE) and the healing one, later on, I only used the AoE variant as I had enough mana. It just was so boring to play. My favorite playthrough was with an Aragorn sort-of guy, focussing Greatweapons and Archery. Great game, exploring is awesome, but the gameplay and story are really, really bad.

Yeah, I've read your opinion on Skyrim around here many times now ... and your experience sounds nothing like mine. My current character, for example, focuses on light armor/two handed without resto; so combat is plenty interesting.

 Manchu wrote:
Yeah, I've read your opinion on Skyrim around here many times now ... and your experience sounds nothing like mine. My current character, for example, focuses on light armor/two handed without resto; so combat is plenty interesting.

I have never used Restoration magic in my Skyrim playthroughs, and I have to agree with Manchu, combat is plenty interesting. And there is just a satisfying crunch when I embed Wuthrad into a guy's skull

I've never done the whole mage thing in Skyrim... I'm half tempted to give it a whirl and go Vampire Lord with it.

 Manchu wrote:
I don't think there is any reason to believe the Aldmeri Dominion is substantially recovered from its defeats in Cyrodiil and Hammerfall. If so, they should be attacking Cyrodiil again during the course of the game's story -- the height of the civil war in Skyrim would be the most opportune moment for them. The Elves' position strikes me as very weak, except vis-a-vis the Empire ... which in turn seems committed to the idea of Thalmor strength for the sake of maintaining Imperial unity.

I dunno, seems like the Elves are very much seeing the civil war as a way to bleed the empire dry. A Stormcloak victory does end with Tullius, Rikke and most of the Third Legion being killed. I'd wager that their ultimate plan is to let the civil war weaken the Empire as much as possible, and then swoop in to attack a weakened Empire.

 Sigvatr wrote:
What I really didn't like in Skyrim was the magic system ... but in Skyrim, I basically used 2 damage spells (single target / AoE) and the healing one, later on, I only used the AoE variant as I had enough mana.

Personally, I really enojyed the magic system. My main character is a pure mage, and makes use of a wide variety of spells from all of the schools. Dragonhide to armour up before a fight, invisibility to sneak around or escape, incinerate for doing damage, fast healing for healing and summon Dremora Lord for quick meatshields. Paralyse is also a very fun spell to use.

I played a high level VampLord last go. Fighting a fire-breathing dragon at noon was ... frustrating.

 Manchu wrote:
I played a high level VampLord last go. Fighting a fire-breathing dragon at noon was ... frustrating.

Also looking for a reason to actually complete that side of the Dawnguard DLC. I'm on my second playthrough and both of my characters have been "Good." I need a reason to actually be evil

I came up with the character that became the vamplord in a Dakka discussion about being "heroic" in Skyrim. He was an Imperial one-handed/shield/resto (a.k.a., "paladin") and my goal was to see if he could resist the evil quests. Well, he fell spectacularly (Namira's/Boethia's quests) so the road to vampirism was easy enough. Truth is, though, the vampire side of Dawnguard doesn't feel that evil.

My vision of combat is just altered now after playing both Dark Souls / Demon Souls and Chivalry as both games use a heavily skill-based, realistic way of fighting whereas Skyrim's fighting is very one-dimensional and the AI is subpar as well, not being able to properly reacto what you're doing, even on Master with Higher Difficulty mod.

I really liked Skyrim's combat system as well when I first played it (and the second time I played through...), it's just that expectations grow over time and in retrospective, Skyrim's combat system is just bad as in one-dimensional and predictable.

Skyrim with a battle system like Chivalry? Yes please. Oh dear lord, I'd orgasm.

@Sigvatr
There's mods you can get to improve the combat AI dramatically. Maybe try one of those if you plan on another playthrough?

 Manchu wrote:
I came up with the character that became the vamplord in a Dakka discussion about being "heroic" in Skyrim. He was an Imperial one-handed/shield/resto (a.k.a., "paladin") and my goal was to see if he could resist the evil quests. Well, he fell spectacularly (Namira's/Boethia's quests) so the road to vampirism was easy enough. Truth is, though, the vampire side of Dawnguard doesn't feel that evil.

Heh. At the moment, I have the opposite thing. An evil character who I can't decide whether or not they'd join the Vampires.

The Higher Difficulty mod included some AI fixes and improvements, I'll check Nexus for any newer mods on said matter.

It wasn't exactly an internal rebellion. The Forsworn certainly aren't an internal part of Skyrim or Markarth's government. They're their own, seperate force. And I'm not looking at it in a vacuum, I've said that the previous banning of Talos worship was an important factor there.

It's internal in the sense that it happened within the Empire's borders where they would presumably be capable of maintaining order.

came up with the character that became the vamplord in a Dakka discussion about being "heroic" in Skyrim. He was an Imperial one-handed/shield/resto (a.k.a., "paladin") and my goal was to see if he could resist the evil quests. Well, he fell spectacularly (Namira's/Boethia's quests) so the road to vampirism was easy enough. Truth is, though, the vampire side of Dawnguard doesn't feel that evil.

I keep hoping Bethesda would take a few more ques from Bioware in questing. Sure, in a Bioware game the functional differences between option 1 and 2 are kind of shallow, it at least feels like the choice mattered. In Skyrim I don't ever really feel like what few choices are presented really matter in the end (outside of the Civil War storyline).

The difference between siding with the Dawnguard and the Vampires is practically nil in the main storyline. The side stories make the vampires more evil but more laughably evil. Laughable like "how are you nitwits still in charge around here anyway."

EDIT: And actually while were all here and on the subject, where do other posters want to see Elder Scrolls VI go? On the one hand I'd love a game to conclude the story started in Skyrim between the Empire and the Thalmor. On the other, I wouldn't be shocked if this conflicted were concluded for us behind the scenes and the series moved on.

If we got to continue the game from the current story I'd live it to be focused in Valenwood just because the scenery could be awesome (cities built atop massive walking trees? Please take my money!) but with small slivers of Elyswer and Cyrodil (Anvil/Kvatch) to give the conflict a more 'large' feel.

I'd also love a game focused in Hammerfell or High Rock/Daggerfall (Including Orsinium).

First of all: give us an ending! Skyrim's "ending" was a HUGE letdown and Bethesda should be ashamed of themselves for ruining the game's end so much.

Secondly: improve the combat system, sth. similar to Chivalry would be awesome.

Thirdly: Give us a storyline! Skyrim had nothing you could call a story. The potential was there, but it all felt very shallow and in the end, it was quite a letdown.

Fourthly: As with every current-gen TES, mods will fix it.

..and all in all: give us Skyrim 1.5. Skyrim was a 7.5/10 game without mods and a solid 9/10 game with mods. Keep most of the stuff we got with this awesome game, improve its weaknesses and release a nigh-perfect game.

Shame it won't take place in Skyrim again, as I am not really interested in most other provinces and if it's a desert one...please don't >.<

Well, that is one area in which I do agree with Sigvatr regarding TES: there should be a stronger persistent event dimension.

I predict the "official story" will be that the Thalmor succeeded in destroying the Third Empire but were themselves defeated by a coalition of the resulting independent states, including Skyrim. Apart from that, I have no clue what Bethesda will do in TES VI.

What I would really like to see is (1) a game set in Hammerfell and (2) a game where the player is the "great (wo)man of history" rather than that person's helper. In Oblivion and Skyrim, Martin and Ulfric were the main characters. In Morrowind, the player was the main character. Without saying one way is superior to the other, I'd like to see TES VI return to the character taking on the main role even if the effect s/he has on the world is ultimately open-ended within the game world itself, as with the Neveraine.

In that sense, my initial thought is that TES VI should be about the next Tiber Septim, i.e., the founder of the Fourth Empire. But as grand as it sounds, I think that's ultimately a bad idea: TES VI should focus on deeply exploring one area, as Skyrim does, and a dynastic founder would probably need to be all over the place. So instead, I'd like to see the ideas of nationalism and ethnicity as well as empire and independence explored in even greater depth. I think a main story centering around the struggle to re-establish Orsinium could be awesome.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Sigvatr wrote:
and if it's a desert one...please don't >.<

Why? Hammerfell seems really interesting. In many ways, it would be a perfect setting to pick up where Skyrim left off. Hammerfell has already gained its independence from the Empire (having rejected the White-Gold Concordat) and even overcome a civil way, between the Crowns and Forebears, in order to drive out the Second Aldmeri Dominion.

Just personal preference. I hate games that take places in desert, I'm a forest / snow guy.

 Sigvatr wrote:
I'm a forest / snow guy.

Me too. I just think we've seen that in the past two TES. Plus, I doubt Bethesda would make a desert as boring as what other game companies seem to.

 Manchu wrote:
I predict the "official story" will be that the Thalmor succeeded in destroying the Third Empire but were themselves defeated by a coalition of the resulting independent states, including Skyrim.

Not sure myself. What is very interesting here is that it's the first time in a TES game that a player has been free to make their own choice on how to decide the future of Tamrielic politics. It'll be very interesting to see how Bethesda handles it. Though I don't see them doing save porting like in Mass Effect, so it'll probably be one choice or the other. Personally, not sure which side it'll be.

 Manchu wrote:
Ulfric was the main characterI

Have to disagree with that. He's just a side you can pick in the war, really not that significant to the main plot. Meanwhile, your character is the Dragonborn, a heavy focus of prophecy and history, and ultimately the only one capable of dealing with Alduin.

 LordofHats wrote:

It's internal in the sense that it happened within the Empire's borders where they would presumably be capable of maintaining order.

Bear in mind, this was happening while The Empire was losing the war against the Dominion.

http://elderscrolls.wikia.com/wiki/Timeline#4E_174

They were hardly in the best position to help.

In Skyrim, you either work for Ulfric or oppose him. He's the definitive personality of the game. He doesn't feature very much in the main quest -- but then again, neither does anyone! As LoH pointed out, the threat of Alduin pales in comparison to the civil war. While Alduin is certainly a greater danger to Nirn than either Ulfric or the Thalmor, the "culture" of the game itself is less defined by the return of dragons than by the politics of Man and Mer.

To the common man, dragons are something that are rarely seen and things that have not been seen for hundreds of years. Compare that to the fact that the way of life in Skyrim has been affected greatly by the Empire and the death of High King Torygg means that to the average citizen, Ulfric and his war is far more important to the average citizen than dragons.

With that being said, I wouldn't mind seeing destructable locations in the next game. Village attacked by w/e the big bad is? People are injured/dead and rebuilding. As the game goes on and you level up, more things are destroyed. Perhaps it is well known that the main character has the ability to stop what is going on, and people begin to treat you different based on x number of villages that have been attacked/destroyed. Idk, perhaps to give some urgency to it.

But you could say the same thing about Tullius. In the civil war, you either opppose what he's doing or side with him. And "definitive" personality is rather subjective. One could take view that they, the player are the "difinitive" personality as it is their decisions that drive and shape events.

I'd certainly disagree that Alduin pales in comparison to anything. He's called the World-eater! If he's not stopped, then the civil war hardly matters. I'd say that the game's focus is very much on the Dragons returning, since they're an ever present and deadly threat while the civil war can basically be ignored and left in the background.

 Alfndrate wrote:
I wouldn't mind seeing destructable locations in the next game.

Things should be destructible and repairable. I always thought it was a terrible shame that Kvatch was never rebuilt during TES IV -- or Helgen in Skyrim for that matter.

 Troike wrote:
But you could say the same thing about Tullius.

No you can't. Tullius is just an employee doing his job.

 Troike wrote:
I'd say that the game's focus is very much on the Dragons returning

Not really. Wherever you go in Skyrim, people have much stronger feelings on the civil war than dragons (except Sky Haven Temple and High Hrothgar).