Board Thread:Lore Discussion/@comment-27007772-20140611204941/@comment-24075086-20150529235158

You love waving around the WGC as a justification but the WGC while allows for Thalmor presence as treaty enforcers ONLY. It does not in any way indicate an allowance of Dominion armies in imperial territory or there would be Thalmor occupation of Cyrodil right now. An independent Skyrim would cut off High Rock from both Imperial and Dominion influence due to the borders of Skyrim and Hammerfell cutting it off from Cyrodil. With how much Ulfric hates the thalmor do you really think he'll let the thalmor forces leave? Even during the course of the civil war every thalmor within stormcloak areas are put to the sword such as when Markarth falls Ondolemar gets axed by Galmar (this is never shown in the vanilla game but the code has a battle for Markarth and at the end Galmar kills Ondolemar). The thalmor forces wouldn't go anywhere they'd be DEAD.

The empire ALREADY has the strength to defeat the thalmor and HAS ALWAYS had that power but they merely refuse to do anything. "The Great War" clearly states that the dominion armies were divided into two sections one bound for Cyrodil and the other to Hammerfell. The book states that the dominion army in Cyrodil was completely destroyed and its leader hung from the White Gold Tower for weeks (The only good thing Titus Mede II has ever done)...and the empire took that chance to sign a treaty with the most outrageous terms imaginable! It wasn't forced on them by the thalmor the empire had the upper hand and proceeded to voluntarily go to the thalmor and sign that betrayal of all men! Even a child could've gotten more reasonable conditions out of a ceasefire especially since the empire had the advantage and momentum. This is further compounded by the fact that Hammerfell would later defeat the remaining dominion forces BY THEMSELVES and gotten a far better treaty out of them. (Second treaty of Stros'Mkai) The empire serves the thalmor now and is the enemy. You want to claim otherwise but the game itself has made it abundantly clear. Even the code has the thalmor and the imperials under one faction labelling. http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Skyrim:Factions_I It is a literal fact that the empire and the dominion are now essentially one and the same.