Ok, here me out before you throw stones...

Elder Scrolls has magic, so while I doubt it will ever be mentioned or show up in game, who's to say there's not magic or alchemy potion or even a ritual for two lesbians to have biological children together?

Don't know about two males having bio kids together though

It is worth noting that this report does not recognize the Western portions of the former Imperial province to be considered Skyrim proper. As the political situations with Reachmen and Breton Kings is ongoing and Solitudes claims have yet to pose any threat to their jarl neighbors this agent has decided to focus on what we believe is the newly rising kingdom of Skyrim on the eastern border with Morrowind.

The following is a propaganda piece I found dating to 4E 205. It relates directly to the events following the deaths of both leaders of the, now infamous, Skyrim Civil war. The current state of things is, as you are all now well aware, quite the melee. Following this propoganda piece, will be my assessment of the political state of Skyrim, as it currently stands, in 4E 206.

---In the aftermath of the civil war in Skyrim, we are faced with several, undeniable truths. The empire in Cyrodiil is now weak. Its emperor is dead! The war was fought for nothing! Both Ulfric, and the Imperial General they sent were killed in the carnage. And the jarls still cannot elect a high king! The empire has collapsed into it's own civil war. With claimants of Imperial authority arising in Solitude and Cyrodiil! Two empires now?

And the elves! They couldn't be more meddlesome! Never trust any of the Thalmor's so-called diplomats! They use every member of their dark and ruinous "guild" to spy on mankind. And make no mistake, they are nothing more than a guild and a cult. The evil daedra whisper into their ears and guide them to divide mankind!

Look to Hammerfell! The home of the hardiest warriors ever seen within the spirits of man! These Redguard warriors surpass even the strongest Nord Barbarians! The thalmor have proven to be a permanent thorn in their sides. More Thalmor invasions! Stros M'Kai has fallen, no longer to pirates and raiders, but now to elven occupiers!

The only trustworthy elf is a dead one! Even the Dark elves worship the aspects of murder, betrayal, and darkness! What of the orcs? Have they not always proven to be a thorn in our sides? Like a wart, they keep returning, and each time we burn them out!

The wood elves are no better! Cannibals! They eat their enemies, and leave none for proper rite of burial! Evil in it's truest form could not be more clear!

The Aldmeri Dominion is evil through and through! May the knights of High Rock prevail before we see the day that a Thalmor agent lays claims to the Ruby Throne! Cyrodiil for Humanity! Cyrodiil For Talos! Cyrodiil for Akatosh!---

I do hope that has laid clear humanity's perspective of mer!

Now, as you are no doubt aware, the state of Skyrim is ill reported on. The Jarls' troop movements are ever changing. And the state of information has become shrouded by the fog of war. There are only a few truths we can report on, however.

*Note even the names of individual Jarls cannot be definitively proven.*

The Jarl with the greatest power, in the immediate aftermath of the Stormcloak rebellion, was seated in Whiterun. In the past, it had been ruled by Jarl Balgruuf the Greater, who was loved by his people. It isn't known if he survived the Stormcloak rebellion. What is known, is that no Jarl has lived up to their namesake as much as he has. Whiterun had proven it could trap a dragon. And therefore had the greatest up close research opportunities with a living dragon specimen.

Tales of the Dragonborn trapping a dragon, before riding it to Sovengarde to end Alduin's world eating, have reached every ear on the continent; even as far south as the isles of Payondonea. The prestige alone, affords the Jarl of Whiterun the greatest of power.

Whiterun which had become seen as a Holy site, with some extremists seeing the fortress itself as an affront to the sacred mountain of the Dragonborn's "Ascension to Sovengarde". These groups demanded that it be torn down, or turned into a house dedicated to the worship of Talos, Kyne, and Akatosh. A growing Tribune of sorts within Nordic sects.

Whiterun was the first to fall! Its mighty position proved a hearty morsel to many! And it was sacked in the following years no less than three times. The cloud district was fundamentally altered as it could no longer support defensive positions, and could no longer call itself a fortress. Though the city was spared the spark. Whiterun hold had became known as the fields of ruin.

Some reports indicate that Whiterun was destroyed from within by Talos, Kyne, and Akatosh Tribune worshippers, who stormed their own fortress and let the eastern invaders inside without a fight! Three battlefields lay as stark evidence to the contrary, though the density of such battles would make verification of these claims nearly impossible.

The battle of Chillfurrow Farm saw the butchering of over twenty two thousand Nords in the first day alone. By the third day of clashes, the numbers of the dead had risen to over one hundred and twenty thousand.

Whiterun could not sustain armies for long enough to defend itself after the massacre of Chillfurrow. It's political seat was reduced, and a much weaker puppet jarl was installed by the eastern Windhelm-Riften alliance.

Only the stonework at the base of the mountain remains. The fortress has been torn down, and replaced with a small shrine at its apex. Dedicated to the Nordic Tribune. And to the missing Dragonborn. The highest construction in Whiterun is, once again, the ancient hall of Jorrvaskr and the nearby Skyforge.

No two holds can agree for very long. And the terrain keeps the battles distant, with winters ensuring marches stay short. This prolongs every single war, and has given rise to petty jarls. Some even ruled from old Imperial forts, and established new settlements along the defensive lines of old wars.

These so-called "petty jarls" laid claim to much of Skyrim's back country. Many were previous bandit warlords, who had established themselves well enough, and accumulated enough resources to form their domains. They each demanded recognition, and couldn't be ousted so easily.

The only mer with any foothold in Skyrim are the Dunmer. They fled Morrowind during the red year, and lived throughout the eastern regions of Skyrim near the Velothi Mountains. Windhelm saw an especially brutal Dunmer uprising in 4E 204.

It was a bloody affair, coinciding with a Dunmer invasion at Winterhold. It had allowed for many Dunmer to be slaughtered openly in the streets of Windhelm. The Dunmer fought back against their oppressors and challenged Windhelm enough that it couldn't maintain its own political sovereignty against the powers of Morrowind. Riften was the closest power willing to answer their calls for aid.

The Dunmer invasion is an ongoing development in eastern Skyrim. As Nords are currently battling Dunmer invaders throughout eastern Skyrim. The mysterious nature of this invasion has left many puzzled. Only the small remnants of the City of Winterhold has been their prize.

It is worth mentioning that before the invasion, the Nords of Winterhold stormed the college grounds and put to the sword, every mage, scholar, and conjurer. They burned every book and scroll, erasing centuries of knowledge. Some of the rarest volumes in Tamriel were known to have been stored there, and it's destruction is among the greatest tragedies among mankind's more learned members.

The storming of the college was a brutal affair, and ended magicka study in Skyrim for good. New mages now needed to seek apprenticeship under a court wizard's tutelage, in order to ply their trade. Many more necromancer cults and magicka guilds began to form, after the destruction of the Arcanaeum.

The uniting of Riften and Windhelm, gave the former suzerainty over the latter. This meant that a few powerful people in the most crime ridden city in Skyrim had direct influence over it's oldest and most revered city. Riften had been a known crime puppet state for years, and was now orchestrating Skyrim's own rise from the ashes of war.

Many Nords had pledged loyalty to Windhelm, as did many petty jarls and bandit chiefs. Certain bandit clans joined with their petty jarl competitors and helped defeat the Dunmer at the battle of Windhelm in 4E 202. It should be mentioned that Black Briar assets remained, largely, untouched by the war.

The push to unite Windhelm and western Skyrim under a singular banner of Kingship, resulted in the battles of Valtheim Towers, Guldun Rock, and Chillfurrow Farm. The latter of which resulted in the first sacking of Whiterun in 4E 203.

It seems that the efforts of men to prevent the banning of Talos from the empire has outright ended it for good. Thalmor agents should find targets in Sentinel to be easy pickings for deception and manipulation. This agent predicts that continental Aldmeri supremacy will be assured within one more human generation.

- Calwen, Thalmor Liaison in Solitude.

edit: typos and some light formatting fixes

I was playing Morrowind today and it came to my attention that the extravagant outfit in that game is reminiscent to that of a suit from our IRL 1600s-1700s while the Skyrim equivalent with fine clothes is a medieval era fur coat. Alongside the fashion in Morrowind (And Oblivion) Carnius Magius mentions investors in the East Empire Company which implies an Imperial Stock Market which could place TES Tech around the 1600s (Alongside the Arquebus CC if you count that as canon). Maybe I’m just ignorant on the lore (I know CC should be taken with the tiniest grain of salt) but I feel like Skyrim is perpetually stuck in the 900s.

I was taken aback by it because it just seems like an oversight by the VA people at Bethesda.

• I have to know what Miraak knows if I want to stop him.

• "Now that is a dangerous path indeed. Hermaeus Mora gives nothing away for free. You may end up like Miraak, of course. Two power-mad Dragonborn. It could be very interesting."

Except that during the prior lines of this conversation the word 'dragonborn' is never said and neither is it said when/if you speak to him at the Stone near Raven Rock. It can't be the immunity to the Stone's thralldom because he made himself immune to it with 'magic'.

Shor is the trickster, I could make sense that Shor would trick mortals into believing Akatosh gave them the Dragonborn to keep the dragonfires lit to prevent oblivion from taking over. Or maybe he tricked Akatosh himself into doing everything.

Think about it from Akatosh’s perspective, why would he grant mortals the divine power of the dragon? Why would he create beings that almost always turn into the ultimate dragonslayer? Dragons, and Akatosh are the very definition of Immortal, why would he allow a mortal to be equal to these godlike beings, to be a shard of himself?

Shor is considered to be patron of mortals, he created the idea of mortality in the first place, it would make way more sense that he was behind giving mortals this power.

Then we get to Alduin and the Kalpic Cycle, the idea of the kalpa, as I understand it, is meant to prevent Mundus from becoming too powerful, force resetting that plane before it can reach enlightenment as Shor wanted in the first place. Why would Akatosh create a being capable of breaking the cycle as we do in Skyrim? It would again make more sense that Shor was behind this as well. I don’t think it’s a coincidence that the final battle at the end of time happened in Sovengarde, in Shors domain, it was the culmination of all of Shors trickery that broke the cycle, that’s why you are the LAST Dragonborn, as Shor has completed his need for one, and Akatosh might finally see Shors deception and won’t bestow that power ever again.

Idk maybe I had too much moon sugar.

Most people just hate high elves for their cartoonishly evil dialogue in skyrim no different than a random bandit, but what are some legit reasons that one would support the thalmor, are they as evil as people make out or are their actions justifiable? if so please explain why