Almost the same terms. Not the same.
And what changed, exactly?
No they didn't.
'The long list of demands included staggering tributes, disbandment of the Blades, outlawing the worship of Talos, and ceding large sections of Hammerfell to the Dominion.' - The Great War
'Critics have pointed out that the Concordat is almost identical to the ultimatum the Emperor rejected five years earlier.' - The Great War
The Eight/Nine Divines were the creation of the Empire. The Talos ban was so poorly enforced, that it once took the Thalmor seven days to arrest one Nord who was going about Talos in public. In Markarth... where the Justiciar's have Headquarters.
It is called postponement. The next war is coming.
Poorly enforced? Tell that to all the people who've been abducted by them instead of focusing on a single example. Throughout Skyrim, you regularly encounter Thalmor squads escorting their captives to their prisons.
A good leader knows when and when not to fight. Leading your Military to the death isn't good, you've just left thousands of your innocent civilians at the mercy of the Aldmeri Dominion. Things would of been 1000 times worse, had the Aldmeri won.
The Empire essentially lost a little less than half it's forces during the war, but they were still standing and ready to fight. Given that Hammerfell alone was able to defeat what was left of the Dominion's forces, he could've continued the war without risking total defeat.
Skyrim and High Rock welcomed peace. The war had affected all the provinces of the Empire, either directly or indirectly. Thousands of Nords had died, and Skyrim had lost the source where most of their silver comes from. High Rock later lost Wayrest to pirates.
High Rock, perhaps. Skyrim? Surrender is anathema to the Nords. Even among those who support the Empire, there are many who will freely admit that they don't agree with the things they've done. They simply don't believe it's worth destroying the Empire over. Which is predictable, since all the holds that stayed loyal during the civil war are economically dependent on the Empire to some degree.
Notice how half of Skyrim supports the Empire. Those that support Ulfric Stormcloak, many of those supporters only sided with him several months ago. No one else was talking about independence in the Moot.
We don't know what they were talking about during the previous Moot. In fact, given that there was a Moot at all we can guess something unusual was being discussed. Ordinarily, it only occurs when there is no direct heir to the Throne of High King or or if the previous king was challenged and lost. That wasn't the case for Torygg.
Hammerfell always considered themselves "Part of the Empire, but not a subject". They refused the White-Gold Concordat, Skyrim and High Rock... shockingly didn't. So obviously many welcomed peace or they would of followed Hammerfell.
Or, it could be the fact that the Empire handed over most of Hammerfell's territory to the Dominion that made the difference. Also, we learn during the civil war that the Empire bought off the Jarls to get them to support the Concordat. Even if the popular sentiment was to continue the fight, the Nords wouldn't have rebelled against their own leaders at that point in time. It was only after nearly 3 decades of enduring the Thalmor's little inquisition while the Empire did nothing that the people finally said enough.
And they fought a greatly weakened force, which they couldn't of even done so without the Legion in the first place. It was the Imperial Legion that halted the Dominion in Hammerfell and then drove them back across the province.
Redguards are famous warriors, one of the most naturally talented. They were fighting in their home turf, on their terms. Using most probably guerrilla warfare like in the Great War. They also didn't drive them, they signed a peace treaty and the Dominion left peacefully.
It ruined their province greatly.
So, the Dominion abandoned their attempted conquest of Hammerfell for no reason? You're arguing semantics again. They were forced to retreat.
My point is simple. If the people of Hammerfell, weakened and alone, were able to force the Dominion to back down, the Empire, which still had at least over half of it's forces, could have done the same had the war continued. In fact, they didn't even need to do that much. All the Empire had to do was drag out the war until the Thalmor were ready to agree to an actual peace treaty, instead of the virtual surrender represented by the White-Gold Concordat.
They did, completely wiped out a main Aldmeri army. But they were left greatly weakened from taking the Imperial City, the Aldmeri were entrenched within. The Empire had a greatly weakened army to begin with.
They were weakened, yes, but so was the Dominion.
Could've done so as well, how? Send their forces into Hammerfell? Leave Cyrodiil wide open to attack? The Empire had zero idea of what was beyond their borders, the Blades had all but been wiped out. Titus Mede II, had no idea what was out there.
The Empire still had at least 15 functioning legions, though they were all at half-strength. They could have sent two to three legions to reinforce Hammerfell while using the rest to fortify their borders to deter another invasion. The Dominion likely would've been forced to withdraw from Hammerfell much earlier, and the war would've came to an end on the Empire's terms.
As for the lack of intel, it's pretty simple. Titus Mede II went into the Great War without knowing the full extent of the Dominion's military power against the advice of his generals. He faced the same choice following the Battle of the Red Ring. He could either fight not knowing the odds, or surrender. He chose to surrender.
Infighting between the Crowns and Forebears. That is political infighting, they weren't fighting some Civil War or this great internal conflict. They've always had petty infighting between the two political factions.
Even still, it makes no difference how they were before the war. They united as one during the war.
We don't know the extent of the infighting in Hammerfell during that time period. It could've been purely political, or there could've been violence involved. Point is, Hammerfell was weakened even before the war began.
Yes, to restore order, repair cities, replenish the ranks. Takes time.
So, it took decades to accomplish all of this, and they have so little to show for it. Hm.
Twenty six.
I rounded up.
Ambushing Ulfric and a handful of his troops is hardly an amazing display of military might. Never mind the fact that even if they had succeeded in executing Ulfric, he would have become a martyr and his cause would have continued.
Speculation. The Empire has been restoring the Legion, we can tell this by several things.
1) Tullius mentions majority of the Imperial Legion is on the Dominion's borders.
2) There is a new Imperial Force assembling in Cyrodiil, south of Pale Pass to march into Skyrim.
3) There are Legion patrols being assigned to escort trade shipments, which indicates they do have man power to spare.
4) The Empire also employs thousands of mercenaries.
1. And?
2. I've never heard of this before. Can you provide a reference?
3. So they can provide escorts to nobles and trade shipments, but they don't have the men to spare to send Tullius reinforcements when the war goes south? They really need to get their priorities straight then.
4. And?
It doesn't make sense, because you're the only one saying it
He's had 26 years to rebuild his army, and what has he done with it? Has he booted the Thalmor from the Empire? Has he made any effort to stand up to the Dominion or shown any backbone? Nope. Instead, you've got high-ranking Imperial officials like General Tullius tip-toeing around and attending Thalmor parties to avoid offending the Dominion and risking the peace.
That's not the behavior of an Empire preparing for war. It's the behavior of a weak government trying to appease an enemy to avoid conflict. Doesn't quite match up with the idea that Titus II was just buying time to recover and regroup, or that the Legion has recovered.
The Empire was giving some of Hammerfell's territory, which the Aldmeri Dominion had already occupied. They were entrenched in those parts. Generally when you're signing a peace treaty, you keep what you control.
And it just so happened to be the same tract of land they'd asked for in the beginning. Hm.
They're allowed to arrest those who break the law. No one is happy about it, but it wasn't so bad before Ulfric started to stir things up. If they're allowed to arrest anyone with full Imperial support... why can't the head of the Thalmor Justiciar's arrest one simple Nord in Markarth?
Got any evidence that the Thalmor didn't bother with arresting folks who worshiped Talos before Ulfric came along? Besides, the only thing Ulfric 'stirred up' was the open worship of Talos because he represented the freedom to do so. And they are allowed to arrest anyone they can 'prove' to have worshiped Talos. Once Ondolemar has evidence to back up his accusations, the Nord gets arrested.
The Sons of Skyrim were formed to further Ulfric's ambitions. They were his personal army, and the originals of them were at the Markarth Incident.
So, his soldiers followed him for the fun of it, then? They weren't angry about the Concordat, they were just content to be Ulfric's personal militia to feed his ego? They followed Ulfric because they believed in his ideals, just as the Stormcloaks would in years to come.
Ulfric didn't have much support until he killed Torygg.
Any evidence? Why exactly would Ulfric's duel with the High King cause large swaths of people to suddenly decide he had the right of things? No, people supported Ulfric from the beginning because they despised the Concordat. The death of Torygg simply emboldened his supporters into taking action.
The Thalmor are using the war for a reason to increase their presence. It is why you hear Rikke go on about "Their damned inquisition" and why the Dossier mentions Imperial victory will harm their overall position in Skyrim.
Why? Because the Thalmor need permission to arrest people. While the Civil War rages, there is a lack of guards and legion soldiers to keep an eye on the Thalmor.
Their presence in Skyrim is heavy because it's a hotbed of Talos worship and open defiance of the terms of the White-Gold Concordat. An Imperial victory will harm their long term goals in Skyrim because the Empire will no longer have to devote troops to quelling a rebellion.
He accepted his death. Much in the very same way Uriel VII accepted his death, even though he knew his death would cause much destruction because Oblivion Gates couldn't open while he was alive.
Except he knew he would die, and he willingly walked towards his death.
It's been a while since I've played Oblivion, but the last time I checked Uriel didn't even have a chance to defend himself. The assassin who killed him came out of nowhere and stabbed him in the back before he could even respond. He'd accepted his death, but like I've said previously, there is a difference between accepting your death at the hands of a superior enemy and just letting them kill you.
Why would it be? You never heard of Uriel VII's heirs until they were dead. Titus Mede II has an aunt still living, the blood line is still there. If he had no heir, you would hear about it. Why? Because people mention things like that, an Empire without any Emperors or anyone for succession.
And even after Mede dies, we hear nothing about his heirs or the identity of the next Emperor. Surely if it was cut and dry, we'd have a name for the new Emperor. Unless it hadn't been decided because he had no heirs. As for him having an aunt, how do you figure? All we know is that Vittoria Vici was his cousin. We don't know how distant the relationship was ( First Cousins? Second?), or if he had any living kin aside from her.
Tullius is the Military Governor of Skyrim and is there with the authority of the Emperor. He has to worry about Imperial politics, because he is now a major player in Imperial politics. He's the acting Head of State for Skyrim.
By Imperial politics, I mean 'Cyrodiil' politics. He's busy in Skyrim trying to put down a rebellion. I sincerely doubt he's concerned about who the Elder Council will put on Throne while he has a war to fight, unless the whole issue collapses into violence.
We also know the nobility who are present around the Thalmor do not trust them, they say they want peace, but as noted by their emotion in the game files. They don't believe a word of it. Many of the Jarls despise the Thalmor, and Tullius outright hate them.
We know the nobility in Skyrim doesn't trust them. That doesn't mean they haven't been able to influence them or the nobles in Cyrodiil.
What is the man going to do? You're a Dark Brotherhood assassin. Do you understand what that means?
The assassination is now known to have been the work of a group of daedric cultists known as the Mythic Dawn. (Those who still suspect the Dark Brotherhood should consider two facts: first, they would have only needed a single assassin, not a small army of them; second, the Dark Brotherhood would never be so foolish as to effectively declare war on the Empire and thus ensure their complete destruction. Witness the eventual fate of the Mythic Dawn.) - http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Skyrim:The_Oblivion_Crisis
How can I sleep at night knowing my Legion can't possibly save the life of someone marked for death by the Dark Brotherhood? - http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Oblivion:Night_Mother_Rituals!
The same Dark Brotherhood that has nearly been purged from the Empire aside from a single den of assassins in Skyrim? The same Dark Brotherhood that can be wiped out by a decent warrior? Simply because they were a bunch of boogeymen in the past doesn't mean he had to believe his death was inevitable. And even if he did, he still could've tried to defend himself and died with a bit of dignity.