Query, Part IV: The Second War against the Empire

The quoted bit is Kirkbride's Altmeri Commentary on Talos, not mine.

[The attached document continues.]

I see no need to write about the Great War in detail, as we of the Empire have already seen its devastation. I will, however, explain the significance of the war to the Altmer and their leading entity. What we named the ‘Great War,’ the Altmer, in all seriousness, refer to as the ‘First War against the Empire.’ The war was a calculated step to a greater campaign. Your Imperial majesty knows above all that Tamriel did not fall into war; war was forced upon it, with utmost intention, by the Alinor government and most likely the Crystal-Stone itself. The rest of this report will discuss Altmeri war aims, the steps achieved by the war and the discernable aims for the future. For this section, I will address these points in reference to the specific issue of Talos.

As previously stated, Talos has been established as the enemy of the Altmer, ever since its formation in the Third Era. The Third Dominion, however, represented a manifest campaign against Talos that the Altmer had not fathomed. Talos brings into question the verity of the Thalmor’s stated war aims – the ultimatum and White-Gold-Concordat – as well as the synergy of the common people of Alinor and their ruling body.

A subject excluded from Imperial study is Alinor’s popular attitudes toward the First War. Public opinion, especially of the ruling elite, strongly backed intervention against Talos worship in the Empire, but left out any long-term strategic accomplishments of a victorious armed conflict. The common Altmer believed that there was a chance of us accepting their leaders’ demands. The original Ultimatum, obviously, was not designed to be agreed upon; it was a bluff where the falsehood was the Empire’s power of choice.

I believe the White-Gold Concordat, almost analogous to the original Ultimatum, not to be a straightforward exposition of Altmeri war aims. Here I write of the Talos clause: the worship of Talos is now illegal, but its enforcement does not come near to meeting our dreaded expectations. Even shrines in major cities remain open. People openly wear Talos amulets in public and refer to the Nine in verbal expressions. This would suggest that the suppression of Talos worship is not the leading motive of the Thalmor government, at least not immediately. I have learned from my time in Alinor, however, that it is very much encouraged by the populus, which largely follows a combination of Neostatic Transcendentalism and hatred of Man.

I came across a report by an official of the Thalmor Division of Doctrine and the Public. This report was from the final months of the Great War and described the public’s conception of what should be achieved by winning the war, what they wanted after the war was won and thereby how the Thalmor would work with their sentiments. I made a summary of a particular section of this document, seen below (using terminology from the text itself, not all of which I understand and should be reviewed by the Council):

>“To kill Man is to reach Heaven, from where we came before the Doom Drum's iniquity. When we accomplish this, we can escape the mockery and long shame of the Material Prison.

>“To achieve this goal, we must:

>“1) Erase the Upstart Talos from the mythic. His presence fortifies the Wheel of the Convention, and binds our souls to this plane.

>“2) Remove Man not just from the world, but from the Pattern of Possibility, so that the very idea of them can be forgotten and thereby never again repeated.

>“3) With Talos and the Sons of Talos removed, the Dragon will become ours to unbind. The world of mortals will be over. The Dragon will uncoil his hold on the stagnancy of linear time and move as Free Serpent again, moving through the Aether without measure or burden, spilling time along the innumerable roads we once travelled. And with that we will regain the mantle of the imperishable spirit.”

Chillingly, this is a surmisal of popular opinion, and we know less of Thalmor aims than I or anybody else had believed. The current state of the Concordat would imply that if these represent Thalmor aims, they are planned further in the future. For now, I am most inclined to put forward that the Talos clause of the White-Gold concordat serves mundane and situational purposes.

The Imperial Palace faces threats from all sides: fanatical Talos worshippers, Imperial nationalists and former soldiers alike; even indifferent cults and criminal groups have taken advantage of the political turmoil to make their disorganised assaults. There are riots in the Imperial city nearly every week (this, in fact, resembles the situation of the Alinor City Hall prior to the rise of the Thalmor). Skyrim threatens breaking off from the Empire entirely due to the Stormcloak rebellion, which uses Talos worship as a sentimental backing for its revolt. This cannot be unintended by the Thalmor. The Talos clause was not about putting down Talos worship; I am at this point certain that it intended solely to cultivate resentment in hopes of disunity and even complete dissolution of our Empire.

Another hint at the Thalmor’s true intention is the territorial clause of Hammerfell. Hammerfell, the region where Man does not worship Talos, was also the only region faced with massive cessions. One might consider such clauses a small aftertaste of the ultimatum that began the Great War: Hammerfell, with a proposal it could not accept, continued to fight the Thalmor and the White-Gold Concordat, thereby wrenching itself from us. Why would the Thalmor plan this specifically, if not to divide the provinces of Man where the Talos Clause alone was not enough? So far, Talos is not an end but a means to divide and conquer.

In conclusion: the Second War against the Empire is happening right at this moment. It is a dry war, a war against unity, a continuation of the First and its armistice.

[Continued]