That mod was hella janky, High King Of Skyrim iirc.
Anyway taking Skyrim for yourself is interesting but I wonder if it's achievable lore wise, where are you gonna get the army?
And how are you gonna keep the thalmor from fucking you over?

 

Stab them.

 

Shoot them.

Stealth Archer OP.

 

Burn them.

 

Cook'em in a stew

 

For a more serious answer: you’re the Dragonborn, slayer of Alduin, whose power was great enough to eat the world. You’re in a power tier comparable to Talos. Taking over one province and protecting it from the Thalmor shouldn’t be too hard for you.

 

This thread is ignoring the elephant in the room that is what all true Elder Scrolls lore fans know - the Last Dragonborn is a Hero, and the Prisoner is doomed to obscurity almost as soon as the events of their respective game/prophecy finishes. Unless they achieve apotheosis like the Champion of Cyrodiil did with Sheogorath, which by most measures is effectively the same thing.

It's unlikely TLD is going to be leading any invasion of Alinor after the events of Skyrim suffice to say. At the end of TES:V the province is in a pretty bad state having been through a civil war and then being ravaged by dragons. I doubt they'd be in much of a position to fight the Thalmor independently no matter who ends up as High King.

 

This ignores geography.



The Aldmeri Dominion (based in Summerset) already tried to invade/keep Hammerfell and mostly failed. High Rock remains firmly in the Empire.

Ultimately, Skyrim is in a very defensible location against the Aldmeri Dominion and could hold against the Elves. Especially with the Last Dragonborn at their head.

 

Having confidence in Bethesda doing anything but removing mechanics and making a more boring story line in exchange for a slightly prettier world and sick trailer video is a fools game. I wouldn't be shocked if they included some house building feature in the next one, only to replace the dialog window with two emojis, smile and frown.

That said, I will probably buy the game day one. Yuck

 

Never gonna happen. Bethesda won't scrap the mountain physics, they're too hilarious.

 

I'd definitely agree that the Altmer would have a difficult time invading and holding Skyrim, but my earlier reference to Skyrim struggling to fight the Thalmor wasn't based on the assumption the elves would invade. If you follow the theory that the Thalmor's goal is to undo the work of Lorkhan and unravel Mundus by dismantling the Towers, they no longer have any reason to occupy Skyrim following the events of TES:V. Skyrim's tower has been deactivated with the Dragon-Break we caused atop Snow-Throat with the Elder Scroll to learn Dragonrend.

The only tower remaining in Nirn is Ada-Mantia (maybe Green-Sap, but I doubt it considering how long Valenwood has been part of the Dominion and that the great walking tree city of Falinesti no longer walks) hence the reason for continued Thalmor interest in the Illiac Bay. If the nords want to fight the Thalmor, it will have to be there or in elven territory itself. I doubt the elves will be kind enough to come to them without having a tower to destroy, and whatever issues the Dominion might have with force projection I'd say go tenfold for any independent nords of Skyrim.

 

@Fatality Good Analysis and would agree. Suppose I was more operating under a Skyrim surviving a thalmor invasion than anything else. The larger context agreed.

 

Has using the Elder Scroll on High Hrothgar definitely resulted in a dragon break?

And further, has that been proven to have deactivated the tower? The heart of that tower is the cave, right? I might be wrong but I can see no proof that the Tower in Skyrim is out of commission.

And wasn't the white gold tower reactivated by Akatosh?

The bigger issue is the result of the Civil War. The Thalmor need Ulfric to lose. Badly.

@Fatality @Arthellion

 

Every Elder Scrolls game involves a Dragonbreak, full stop. It's the nature of the universe and how the protagonists fit into it. It may not have been specifically that moment that caused the Dragonbreak (though I wouldn't bet on that), but the events of the game are most definitely covered by one.

As for the White-Gold Tower, it's never made clear one way or the other. It's very possible it was restored, but at the same time, it (and the Imperial City) was also sacked by the Altmer during their war against the Empire. Given the Thalmor's objectives, I would be shocked if they didn't go out of their way to ruin whatever function the Tower may have had.

 

I meant that the point of the Dragonbreak might be the result of the civil war. In fact it would have to be because of Alduin wins it's game over for Mundus anyway.

If Ulfric wins then Skyrim becomes a bigger problem than the rest of the empire put together.

 

While the cave which is the Stone of the Snow Tower is never shown (though some theorise that it's the time wound, and it's only Kirkbride's word that it even is a cave) and it isn't made immediately obvious that the tower has been deactivated in game, I'd point to the Alduin's Wall prophecy as proof that it has been:

"When misrule takes its place at the eight corners of the world,

When the Brass Tower walks and Time is reshaped,

When the thrice-blessed fail and the Red Tower trembles,

When the Dragonborn Ruler loses his throne, and the White Tower falls,

When the Snow Tower lies sundered, kingless, bleeding,

The World-Eater wakes, and the Wheel turns upon the Last Dragonborn."

The Prophecy describes the events of previous games and the respective deactivation of the towers involved in them, so it would follow the same will apply to the Snow Tower. The language even implies it I'd say - "sundered, kingless, bleeding".

As for White-Gold, it did fall to the Thalmor during the Great War and was damaged during the sack. It's possible the tower was already deactivated by then however, as it's Stone (Chim-el Adabal, the Amulet of Kings) was destroyed by Martin to defeat Dagon at the end of Oblivion. The relationship between Stone and Tower still isn't exactly clear however.

One more thing, on whether reading the Elder Scroll at the Time Wound caused a Dragonbreak or not, I'll quote Paarthurnax:
"Tiid krent. Time was… shattered here because of what the ancient Nords did to Alduin. If you brought that Kel, that Elder Scroll back here… to the Tiid-Ahraan, the Time-Wound… With the Elder Scroll that was used to break Time, you may be able to… cast yourself back. To the other end of the break. You could learn Dragonrend from those who created it."

Dragonbreaks have always been described as the shattering of time, and we're being told this by a literal shard of Aka, the god of time. I'd say the choice of words wasn't coincidental.

 

That's pretty convincing to be fair, @Fatality.

I'm not expert of the lore but isn't the whole breaking of the towers and the walls of creation ultimately useless to the Thalmor of Ulfric wins?

The first Thalmor win condition is the breaking of Talos. If Skyrim is independent then Talos worship continues and the God continues to exist.

I mean yeah the other conditions are catastrophic but there's no ascension for the Altmer with Talos still in the game.

 

Not really. It's not like the Empire (or the Dominion lackeys running around) was particularly successful at stopping worship of Talos after all. The only real difference if Ulfric won in that regard was that Talos worshipers would be more open about it, and therefore easier to hunt down when the time came.

The Civil War is ultimately meaningless to the Thalmor. Hell, there's reason to believe they orchestrated Ulfric's rebellion in the first place, in order to weaken the Empire and tie up resources that would otherwise be used against them.

 

So the idea with the Towers is that they're basically the foundations of the Elder Scrolls universe, holding the whole thing together and giving reality shape and substance. The original tower that was the site of Convention, where the Aedra met to discuss how to best proceed with the creation of Mundus has many names - Ada Mantia, Direnni Tower, Adamantine, Tower Zero, etc. This tower (and the other towers that are reflections of the original) is a spike holding reality together in place.

The Thalmor (allegedly) want to destroy the Towers because they believe Mundus is a prison constraining their spirits, and without it they'll return to a superior existence in Aetherius like that of their ancestors. If they can destroy all the Towers, it won't matter whether men worship Talos or not because it will all be irrelevant and the physical plane of existence destroyed.

The whole idea with them outlawing the worship of Talos is less an end goal for them than a way to cause division in the Empire, which it obviously succeeded at. They also really, really don't like Talos as a historical figure because he massacred a bunch of Altmer and conquered Alinor with the Numidium within living memory for some elves. Talos as a god is something they like even less because he embodies the mantled form of Lorkhan, the god they believed tricked their ancestors into partaking in convention and thus being imprisoned into Mundus in the first place. Also a man can't become a God etc, elves are superior etc.