The thalmor/elves will never be able to dominate tamriel

[xanikk999]

(4th era discussion)

And heres why:

Elves typically have very low birthrates because they take longer to reach maturity and because they live very long lives and dont have much children. Compared to the human races however, they age quickly and can have children at a much younger age. This point and this point alone means the thalmor can never replenish their forces as rapidly as the empire will.

Every altmer killed hurts the dominion much much more than every imperial or nord soldier killed.

If they can't hope to replenish their losses as quickly as men do how can they hope to succeed? Hell from the looks of it took them over 100 years of the 4th era to even build up a decent sized army to pose a threat to the empire.

[Zero_The_Dark]

There is more that goes into war than just number of soldiers. And even so the Thalmor already did for the most part beat a relatively united empire. Now that more provinces have split off since the white gold concordant I would guess that the empire is quite a bit weaker now than they were at during the great war. Maybe a generation or two down the road we will see that the birth rate does allow the empire to over power the Aldmeri Dominion but that discussion isn't necessarily the most productive one seeing as we have really no information on what happens after the events of Skyrim and basically everything would be speculation and completely opinion based.

[Pilaf The Defiler]

They wouldn't have to control the entire map to control the world, or possibly fundamentally change it. A few key artifacts would be all it would really take. Something comparable to the Eye of Magnus, or Balferia Tower perhaps. Remember their initial military goal was Hammerfell, which would give them easy access to Iliac Bay, but they were stopped and turned back. Their victory in Cyrodiil was meant to be a distraction. It seems to me they really want to control Balferia Tower, which is the Ur-Tower that Convention happened at. Whether their goal is to unmake the world as some believe or simply to reshape it in their ideal Merethic image, controlling that tower might grant them the ability to do so.

[thegooseking]

The best hope for the Thalmor is the continued conflict between the Stormcloaks and the Empire. The Stormcloaks have no love for the Thalmor (after all, they were the ones who insisted the Empire outlaw Talos-worship), but they're too busy with the Empire to be a threat.

There are three possible outcomes to the Stormcloak Rebellion.

One, the Empire wins, and turns its attention back to the Thalmor. This is possibly the best outcome for the Thalmor, since the Empire has already shown acquiescence to the Thalmor even after winning a battle (resulting in the White-Gold Concordat). However, one may infer that this is precisely the reason Amaund Motierre hired the Dark Brotherhood to assassinate Titus Mede II, and presumably he'll see to it that Titus' successor is less accommodating to the Thalmor.

Two, the Stormcloaks win and Skyrim becomes independent. The Empire is weakened, sure, but all of a sudden the Thalmor have to contend with the Nords as well as the Empire (which at this point is basically just Cyrodiil, right?) and the Redguards.

Three, the Stormcloaks and the Empire negotiate peace. This is highly unlikely. The best you can negotiate in the game is a temporary truce while both sides deal with the dragon threat, though it's not entirely outside the realms of possibility that someone might similarly convince both sides that the Thalmor are a common enemy. Particularly because the Stormcloaks' main contention with the Empire is the White-Gold Concordat: if the Empire turned on the Thalmor, the Stormcloaks might lose a lot of their reason to fight the Empire. That's the worst possible outcome for the Thalmor, since, like the second outcome, it gives them multiple enemies, but unlike the second outcome, those enemies are not weakened.

In fact, one has to wonder whether the Thalmor insisted on the outlawing of Talos Worship because they genuinely believed that adding a Ninth Divine to the Eight Aedra was heretical, or because they knew it would cause tension between the Nords and the Empire.

[Derp53]

That's a very interesting thought, considering the thalmor have shown to pragmatic enough to attempt something like that. If their goal was to ferment rebellion in the Empire by causing a ban on Talos worship it worked quite well considering the Empire is pretty strained fighting the civil war in Skyrim and holding the down the border with Valenwood and Elsewyr.

That being said, I think you're overestimating the Stormcloaks and the Empire in this situation, they both have shown to have trouble fighting each other. Why would they have an easier time fighting a better equipped opponent that specializes heavily in fending off enemies when outnumbered, not to mention the Empire is going to have huge thorn in it's side with the thalmor embassies in its territory. As much as I dislike the thalmor they have better equipment than the Legion and the Stormcloaks, have a strategic advantage, and a morale advantage. I don't see the Legion or the Stormcloaks being able to break that advantage without great cost.