User blog comment:Prolietor Dominus/Skyrim info from PC Gamer/@comment-2053932-20111004141201/@comment-206.190.67.230-20111006020949

The problem is, the Empire effectively died during the Oblivion incident, with out the Septim Line and with the recent Emperors being incompetent, the Empire is just twitching like a dead body. The major reason I believe that is that the Septim Line were literal descendants of Talos (Tiber Septim) as such they had enormous respect just for that, but with no god-born descendants and even the worship of Talos being outlawed, the final nail had already been driven in, the corpse just didn't know it yet.