Board Thread:Lore Discussion/@comment-25343239-20150319182007/@comment-260563-20180320223753

Dapoculos13 wrote: No, dude. They're going to win. I already explained why and all my points are valid. It really does not matter to me what you say or how you say it, I'm not going to agree with it or concede that the Empire has any chance of victory. Within the next two hundred years the Empire is a guaranteed failure. Feel free to discuss it with other people but it's a lost cause trying to convince me otherwise.

No, because the Thalmor have stretched themselves too thin. Even in the height of their power when they conquered Cyrodiil, Lord Naarifin was planning to reinforce his position with Daedra. He wouldn't do that if the Thalmor forces were more than enough to just HOLD the place against incoming Imperials. And of course, my points are valid. Yours, however, have no support from either lore or in-game dialogue. And trusting the Thalmor at their word is foolish when the games and lore already implied that they're full of shit and they lie a lot.

Within the next 200 years? The Dominion will lose before the next 100 years are over. Their alliance is so shaky, and their forces are so stretched thin. They sacrificed their entire army for NOTHING in the Great War. No economic concessions, no real military advantages. Just a province they couldn't hold and an uprising in Skyrim that guards from Whiterun could end. All those deaths, all that blood, all that sacrifice, and it was all for nothing. The Thalmor are winning battles, but they're losing the long-term war. And with the Empire having no shortage of men or cash to splash around, the advantage will eventually be theirs. Especially since the last war, most of the Thalmor invasion forces were destroyed. You'd need the reproductive rate of a rabbit to offset that loss, and ES lore shows us that the Altmer were never that numerous to begin with, nor do they have lax breeding laws. The Thalmor are like the Spartans, wanting only the best to survive, especially since purity is their ideology.

So, as I said, the Dominion needs its men more than the Empire needs theirs, and the Dominion gained nothing from its previous war. While they'll have no problems fighting Skyrim alone, the entire Empire is a different matter entirely.