Board Thread:Lore Discussion/@comment-97.81.240.58-20130603234626/@comment-13446185-20140402031403

Smoking.Chimp wrote: There was no fight to continue. At the time of the treaty, the conquest of Cyrodiil was no longer a realistic expectation just as much as a punitive expedition into the Summerset Isles would have been unrealistic. A treaty was unnecessary. All that was left to be done was was to stop and rebuild for the next couple of decades.

Now, while Titus Mede II may not have been aware of the fate of Hammerfell, the victorious army had not emerged from that theatre of war and did not stand behind the negotiating Thalmor. What Titus Mede II could see was the aftermath of what is called an "exchange" in Napoleonic simulations - which is a catastrophic loss for both sides and, in which, position alone dictates the victor over the course of the next few moves. Titus Mede II had the advantage of terrain and, dare I say, position. He also had a clear advantage given that he now stood with equal numbers against a foe who, prior to battle, were the ones that greatly outnumbered his forces as well as having the advantage of terrain and position. Titus Mede II was very much in a position to ask the Thalmor to leave. Although he could not force them to, they were in no condition to dig in against the coming "terrorist" attacks of angry locals who cannot be expected to give up their perceived rights. And, had he chosen to demand war reparations, he could have conceded these against a non-interference pact concerning the sovereignty and independence of provinces which volunteered themselves to the Aldmeri Dominion. This would have gone a long way towards the reunification of those parts of Tamriel which had chosen to secede from the Empire. Perhaps not as the same entity - but Otto von Bismarck might have been prone to argue that a confederacy always works better across cultural borders than any incarnation of the singularly federated nation - and I think he may have had a point. I completely agree, the White-Gold Concordat seems quite weird to me. I see how it plays out to make an interesting story, the Empire is falling apart and Talos' worship is banned, but in a realistic view point it just doesn't make sense.

Basically the White-Gold Concordat made the entire war utterly meaningless. All the fighting and death just results with the same ultimatum scenario proposed by the Thalmor at the beginning of the war. I mean, with this whole White-Gold business, Titus mine as well have just excepted the AD's ultimatum to begin with, the empire would certainly be in a better shape then it was at the end of the war.

Many people say that Titus was just trying to save the Empire, and that he had no choice and that the war ended in a stalemate, but that's not true at all. Fact is Titus had turned the tide of the war at the battle of the Red Ring, dramatically. He nearly defeated the entire AD presence in Cyrodiil, it is understandable why he wanted to make a truce with the Dominion as the Empire was exhausted and so was their enemy (possibly more so). But the WGC was no truce at all, it was a surrender, seriously he agreed to the Dominions original terms for the war! I'm sorry but that is something you never ever do, if you just turned the tide of a war you can either press on (which in the Empires case might not be a good idea), or try to form a truce with an outcome that is either fair or in your favor, you never surrender at this point in a war.

A surrender should only be made if you know there is no way of winning the war, for example, if Titus lost the battle of the Red Ring, that would be a good time to surrender, not when you just turned the tides. To give a real world connection to explain how ridiculous the WGC concept is to me; let's say hypothetically that during WWII, after the Soviet Union won the Battle of Stalingrad (arguably the most influential turning point of the entire war), that Stalin surrendered. Would that make any sense whatsoever?