Board Thread:Lore Discussion/@comment-25343239-20150319182007/@comment-260563-20180105055814

I wouldn't say that a Thalmor victory is nigh-inevitable. But it's just that pound for pound, their soldiers are better than most Imperials or Stormcloaks. Remember how only elite Imperial legions like the Penitus Oculatus and Tullius' guard have spellswords and battlemages in the Fourth Era? Or how most Imperial levies wear leather while most Nord guards wear chain mail? Your average Thalmor squad is decked out in plate mail and has battlemages backing them up. It's like the Mandalorian Wars back in Star Wars, where the Mandalorian soldiers took down five Republic troops for every Mandalorian slain in battle.

The difference is, Altmer don't breed like rabbits the way humans do, which means the humans have numbers, and with that said, numbers will win in siege tactics, so if the Thalmor try another invasion, a skilled Imperial general can hold them off from besieging Imperial cities. But good luck invading the Summerset Isles, where the Dominion Navy probably has a better knack for fighting in that terrain. All they can accomplish is another draw, and that's IF Skyrim fights alongside the rest of the Empire. On their own, the Nords are boned. They don't have the men to hold off a siege, since they'll still be recovering from the Civil War, and on the field, Thalmor soldiers are more well-equipped and have more magic backing them up.

I remember going to a ruin to get some extra words for a dragon shout, and outside, I saw Stormcloaks mixing it up with a Thalmor squad. The Thalmor were using magic, the Stormcloaks were just swinging away with their weapons. The Thalmor eradicated the Stormcloaks with ease. Take that scenario, and multiply it by a thousand, and that's the average battle between Stormcloaks and the Thalmor.

And given that their leader, Ulfric Stormcloak, has the tactical acumen of Leeroy Jenkins, they're totally boned. The notable parts of his career is getting captured twice and killing a boy-king that could have been his greatest asset. That's not the kind of leader you want when taking on the Elves, who are noted to be masters of intelligence and espionage. Tullius would be suitable, since he's a smarter general than Ulfric, and his legion has more men than Ulfric's army. The Elves will take any and all advantages they can get their hands on.

Ulfric killed Torygg despite the fact that he could have convinced the boy-king to secede Skyrim from the Empire peaceably if he tried hard enough. Ulfric got captured twice in his military career, not a good sign for a war leader. And his most notable victory was against the Forsworn, who were primitive savages who only managed to gain a foothold because the Imperial Legion was away, and he cheated his way through that battle the same way he did with Torygg-by abusing the Thu'um shouts. Then again, said magic can't work on spellcasters with wards, which probably explains how the Thalmor caught him.

The Thalmor, on the other hand, took the helm in the fight against the Daedra in the Oblivion Crisis in Alinor, then used subterfuge and assassination to gain control of the Summerset Isles and cause the Empire to fall into a civil war when they killed Potentate Ocato. Then they strong-armed the Wood Elves into an alliance and conned the Khajit into believing them to be saviors of the moons. The Thalmor tortured Ulfric and conned him into believing that the information he gave helped them take Cyrodiil, and they later drove him angrier by imposing the White-Gold Concordat on the Empire, which led to Ulfric rebelling years later. This goes to show that the Thalmor are some of mankind's most accomplished adversaries, master strategists who are not to be underestimated. Aside from their mastery of magic, their mastery of strategy would mark them as the kind of threat that's far above the Stormcloaks' payroll, so if the Nords of Skyrim even hope to one day defeat the Elves, they'll need the help of the other provinces of the Empire.

I'd say that the Dark-Elf love is coming from the Elder Scrolls fans who think that Morrowind is the best. They're not judging the Dark Elves and High Elves fairly, they're letting their nostalgia goggles for Morrowind cloud their judgement. Both the Dunmer and the Altmer have done horrible things. The Altmer started a war against humanity that devastated Tamriel, and they persecuted the Nords for their religion. The Dunmer enslaved the Argonian race. They've both got skulls in their closets, yet these Morrowind fans are willing to shit on the Thalmor but overlook the Dunmer going Jim Crow on the Argonians.