WMG / The Elder Scrolls

Azura is a Daedra of her own choosing

The strict distinction between the Aedra and Daedra is their participation in the creation of Mundus, the universe of the Elder Scrolls games. The Aedra are the gods whom Lorkhan, the trickster deity, fooled into giving of their power to create Mundus, while the Daedra are those who refused Lorkhan's plan, and thus retained all their godly might. However, of all the gods, only Azura knew of Lorkhan's plan. While the division between Aedra and Daedra is accidental, Azura chose to be a Daedra because, as the deity associated with fate, she alone knew what Lorkhan wanted to accomplish, and she threw her lot with the Daedra so as not to lose her godly power. This explains why, of all the Daedra, Azura seems the most reasonable and benign to mortals: as the goddess of fate, the creation of Mundus and of mortals benefits her most of all.

The Warp In The West occurred due to a bug in Daggerfall's final main quest.

Due to this bug, the Agent was able to duplicate the Totem and give it to every possible person so he could get every possible reward. This caused all endings to be canon.

...hey, it happened to me!

• You know what, given the somewhat dodgy metaphysics of the Scrolls-verse, this is probably the most logical explanation for the end of the game.

The Dreamer, aka Anu, aka Amaranth...

...is Shinji. And this whole thing is just a hallucination happening during Instrumentality.

...hey, somebody had to say it.

• Shinji has a impressive and complex imagination. Also explains the complete lack of sex.

The Next Game will take place in Argonia

Near the end of the Thalmor war. Skyrim, Morrowind, Hammerfall and Cyrodil have fallen to the Thalmor, and those who oppose the Thalmor form a resistance, operating out of black marsh whose military and natural defenses have kept the Thalmor at bay.

• Should end with a massive siege on the White Gold Tower
• Sounds kind of hard for someone who wants to play as a High Elf, or Dark Elf. As I'm pretty sure both are banned from Black Marsh. I can't imagine either just casually walking to NPCs and having friendly chats. But then again you could play as a Khajiit or Argonian in Morrowind, and most NPCs treated you the same as any other.
  • It would be an enemy mine situation. Thalmor are a big enough danger to warrant allowing former enemies (and possibly Dominion Traitors) into your numbers. Just with Caution.

Someone at Bethesda is a huge BIONICLE fan

Or, more likely, the other way around, as I think Bionicle wasn't established until well after Daggerfall, at least. Anyway, come on. Giant robot god, that somehow houses an entire race? Things that appear to just be normal fantasy tropes having odd metaphysical science-fiction right under the surface? Even just the idea of a planet with two moons? And in Skyrim, there's the temple in Labyrinthian where you put masks onto busts in order to get a golden mask. Sound familiar?

• To be fair, lots of real planets have two or more moons.

The Elder Scroll's Multiverse

As we all know, Akatosh, while a benevolent god, is Insane. Let's just assume that this insanity manifests as multiple personalities, innumerable personalities. Akatosh is time, so each personality would have it's own individual timeline, where any number of things could be different than the others. Everything would be split, Tamriel, Nirn, Mundus, even Oblivion and Aetherius. Akatosh, being King and Time itself, would be the only constant.

Aaand Boom. I just made a theory linking every last player of Elder Scrolls together.

• As far as I can tell, this is basically canon. It seems to be the entire point of C0DA. (And...for those wondering what C0DA is exactly, go figure it out and then explain it to me.)

The player is not a single character

This regards Oblivion in particular, where the titles we can hold and roles we can play are kinda disjoint. It's not impossible to rationalize the holy Crusader of the Nine Divines being one and the same as the murderous Listener of the Dark Brotherhood and the new god of madness at the same time, especially if you subscribe to the school of thought which holds the Champion of Cyrodiil went insane during the Oblivion Crisis and became a bipolar and amoral force of nature. On the other hand, the dramatic variations between questlines in both aptitude and moral disposition make me skeptical. Would leadership of the Mages' and Fighters' Guilds really be held by the same person? Is that even allowed?

By my estimation, there could have been about five talented young adventurers running around Cyrodiil during that last year of the Third Era. What do you think?

• It's completely illogical, insane and ridiculous that one person did that much and ran that many things at the same time... which is why it's all one person. The Champion is the Daedric Prince of Madness now. Of course their life is insane and illogical!

The Aedra and Daedra are constantly fighting this huge offscreen war over who should control Mundus.

Kinda hard to believe that beings of the same order, yet of two different origins would get along after what Lorkhan did. The Aedra believe that since they made the world, it's theirs, but the Daedra feel that since one of their own inspired the creation of said world, they get special dibs.

• Given that the Aedra essentially are Mundus, whereas the Daedra are personally too weak for anything large-scale, I find this one quite unlikely.

Nirn has a massive firey being in it's core

Keep in mind, in TES the stars and sun are actually holes poked in reality and not burning balls of Hydrogen. Dwemer ruins clearly have steam, and it seems the Dwemer had usage of Geothermal energy. My theory is that some sort of firey, volcanic being is in the center of Nirn providing said heat.

• So "Nirn's core" is exactly the same as "Earth's core" except it's sentient?
  • According to Michael Kirkbride, the center of Nirn is effectively 'The Wheels of Lull', massive cogs, gears, and other devices used after convention to effectively start constructing Nirn.

Humans aren't native to Nirn

They are actually from Earth, they were abducted to Nirn over the centuries by the Dwemer and Daedra. Previously the planet was inhabited by the Dragons and Ancient Aldmer (who would diverge later on). Humans (particularly Nords and Redguards) are distrusting of Magicka because it was used by the Mer to subjugate them. Somewhere along the line humans began to out number many of the Mer groups (such as the Orcs). Forming the Tamiel we know from the Elder Scrolls series.

• Despite their racial seperatism between the Mer, all humans are "bretons" to an extent. Which explains how they are able to use Magicka at all and have inhuman features like black sclera. Bretons just have more Mer blood than humans typically do.
  • Man and Mer both descend from the Ehlnofey, and aren't actually that different. They can in fact breed together, which is how the bretons actually came to be. All men except Redguards can be said to be Nords / Nedic / Atmoran, however.

The PC in nearly all the The Elder Scrolls games are the same person.

• They're summoned only when needed (and usually get themselves into trouble, hence the jail cells).
• The amount of reincarnations they are (Nevarine, Dragonborn, etc.)
• They're not so much as reincarnated as taken off the plane to be remade (or kept the same) between each game (and with the character becoming Sheograth, having to disappear off the plane before dying is no longer nessecery).
  • The only problem with that, is that The Eternal Champion, and The Agent were both canonly alive at the same time. As was the Nevarine and the Champion of Cyrodill. (Those two sets of games, only took place several years apart)
  • That and the fact that the Dragonborn met the Champion of Cyrodill.

The next game will take place in more than one province.

With PS4 and the next Xbox on the way, there's nowhere for the Elder Scrolls to go but even bigger, and the only remaining areas in Tamriel are much smaller than Skyrim, Hammerfell, Morrowind, and Cyrodil. The only way to keep the series expanding and uphold its state-of-the-art reputation is to set the game in multiple areas, rather than forcing the customer settle for less.

• Three problems: firstly, the main problem with increasing the size has nothing to do with the limitations of consoles and everything to do with the practicality of actually putting stuff in there (without resorting to heavy-duty random generation. Play Daggerfall - it is free nowadays - and see why that has its problems). Secondly, Bethesda doesn't need to make the game cover a larger portion of Tamriel to make the size of the ingame map larger - remember, Skyrim is a smaller province than Cyrodiil, but the game Skyrim has about as many square miles as the game Oblivion had: Bethesda can simply decrease the spatial compression (for another example, again Daggerfall shows up: the Iliac Bay area is actually a bit smaller than Vvardenfell, but Daggerfall was a huge game in terms of square miles, much, much larger than Morrowind). Thirdly, modern-day Argonia/Black Marsh is larger than modern-day Morrowind.
• And that's not even getting into the idea that Bethesda could spend more focus on, y'know, a story. There is a limit to how far the idea of "new and advanced graphics" or "even more miles and miles of landscape", and (admittedly IMHO) Skyrim reached it. It's a beautiful game, it's got a metric buttload of quests, cities, and factions... what could be added by increasing the sizes?
  • Going off from the above Tropers. More provinces would be a bad idea. The sheer differing cultural and climatic differences would be impossible to create and establishing in a enjoyable and meaningful way without taking into account what kind dungeon can be explored. Focus on story and ingame Mechanic would probaly be best. Something reintroduction of the agilty skill in Oblivon but more necessary since actual climbing and movement would be helpful to actually get around. (especially necessary if 6 is taking place in Valenwood with descriptions of that Provence.). A well written and character driven story like something by Bioware or Obsidan would also be the way to go. (given the legend of the dragonborn in universe and there capability creating a character who is even more powerful would not only be difficult to implement in gameplay and feats but downright impossible in lore perspective.)

Jauffre is the Eternal Champion.

He is about the correct age, and probably did a lot of cool things to get to his position.

• Alternate theory: Jauffre is the Agent of the Emperor. He's a Breton, which would be the perfect race to send to Daggerfall. He's about the right age; the Agent should be about 58 at the time of Oblivion, while Jauffre is 60 according to the game files. After fulfilling his task for the emperor, Jauffre would have been readily accepted into the Blades, and probably would have easily climbed the ranks to Grandmaster, especially since the Blades' original task was to recover the parts of the Numidium, which the Agent did.
• Canonically, the Agent is dead.
  • He died in one ending, but survived in the others. Just as Mannimarco became a god and a mortal at once, the Agent could comfortably be both live and dead.
  • And the 'dead' ending was never officially implemented in the game, though it was planned.

Centurion was a dwemer brand.

Most if not all dwemer constructs included in any game have the word "centurion" in their name: steam centurion, centurion spider, and so forth. This is very definitely a Nonindicative Name since, well, centurions are officers (literally "leader of hundred men"), meaning one might as well name their robot army Sergeants. It does, however, make perfect sense as the name of a highly popular forging company, offering advanced constructs and other defense mechanisms to protect and serve dwemer and their interests around the world. You deserve only the best to secure your home and workplace from the inferior species: choose Centurion!

• This also crosses into Fridge Brilliance; the reason Centurion automatons are the most commonly encountered is because it really was the best brand. All the other ones broke down over the centuries.

The Guards in Oblivion are telepathic Homunculi.

No matter where or when you commit a crime as long as there someone watching they come, even if horses are the only witnesses they come. They also seem to be able to communicate at distance and interrogate horses.

• Horses do not summon guards, at least not after a patch.

• Actually, the guards just have great vision. If you lower the guard vision variable, the victim needs to be near the guard at some point for them to give chase. They still chase you anywhere you go, however...

The Night Mother, Sithis, and Mephala are all the same being

not sure how to better explain this one but considering that Mephala is hardly consistent even in the matter of its gender and it enjoys messing with people why not for a little amusement cause a schism amongst its own people?

• I think this is confirmed by the in-game book Fire and Darkness.
• Proposed? Certainly. Confirmed? Not necessarily. Scholars squabbling over the reality of their own universe would be nothing new to The Elder Scrolls. Alternate theories on the Night Mother are proposed in the books The Brothers of Darkness and Sacred Witness. None of these books mention any connection between Sithis and the Night Mother/Mephala, however, and indeed, the Dark Brotherhood in Oblivion insists that Sithis is no Daedric being, does not reside in the realm of Oblivion, and they do not make even one mention of Mephala.
• Night Mother was mortal, Sithis was the second being in the universe (just after Anu), Mephala is neither. There is enough to consider that the Brotherhood is actually worshiping Mephala who is acting as Sithis and the Night Mother, but the seperate existance of all is confirmed (again, even if Mephala is masquerading as Sithis to manipulate the Brotherhood).

Between II and IV, some mage discovered how to use Restoration Magic to cure baldness.

This explains why the Emperor is bald in II, but has long flowing hair in IV. It also explains why there are no cut-balls in IV.

• He had hair in I, lost it in II, then regrew it in IV. Weird...
• I would theorize instead that each emperor is a different person. Arena Emperor is Uriel Septim VII, could Daggerfall Emperor not then be Uriel Septim VIII and Oblivion Emperor be Uriel Septim IX or even X?
  • Nope, in-game sources say it's the same emperor. It was mostly a different art team working on the respective games, so it may just be coincidence or simply the magic baldness cure.
  • Also, the guy standing next to the Emperor in Daggerfall's intro is Ocato, who, again, lacks hair in Daggerfall and has hair in Oblivion (he also, er, got pointy ears), so there is something this WMG, or it simply being a trend at the Imperial Court, would explain that 'different emperors' wouldn't.
• I don't see why he couldn't have just shaved his head in II, got bored of that hairstyle, and let it grow out again...
  • That's not as fun.
  • Actually, canonly he was trapped in Oblivion for a very long time. And when he returned he had many nightmares and became cryptically seerlike (as he was in the fourth game). So obviously, the stress got to him, which caused his hair to temporarily fall out.
• No doubt, the real reason, is that Bethesda didn't want to make him bald on account of Patrick Stewart voicing him in IV. They may have felt it too obvious. Though there is a Patrick Stewart fan mod for the game, I hear.

Related to above, why the Emperor's hairstyle is inconsistent.

The Emperors of Tamriel (at least the ones descended from Tiber Septim) are blessed by Akatosh, the god of time. The Warp in the West was a breakdown in the laws of time, and so Uriel Septim IV, being closely connected to the god of time, was particularly affected by it. Losing and then regaining his hair was just one of the side-effects.

The Imperial City Dungeons double as a homonculous-producing facility.

This explains why heroes often start off in prison with no backstory; they were created in prison. This also explains why there are no children in Cyrodiil; everyone is spawned in the Dungeons, fully-grown. It also explains why they can't take off their underwear, as they don't need to use their reproductive organs to reproduce (and note: in Daggerfall, you could strip totally naked, and male characters had no genitals.) And last but not least, it explains why soldiers and certain other types of people look identical to each other: those strains of homonculi are mass-produced.

• Ooh! Ooh! And since everyone starts out in a dungeon, everyone is born flawed—ORIGINAL SIN! Original sin in Tamriel!

Dagon's promises are all empty, and everything he says is a lie.

Mehrunes Dagon's lovely promises of greatness and ascended mortality to those who follow him are all bunk. He doesn't mean any of it; that silly book he wrote is just his method of manipulating foolish mortals and tricking them into helping him take over and destroy the mortal realm. Had the heroes of Arena and Cyrodiil not stopped him before things could go that far, he would have betrayed his faithful mortal servants and slaughtered them too.

• Is pretty obvious that he doesn't really give two craps about the Mythic Dawn and is just using them as worthless pawns, given the number of imprisoned (and dead) Mythic Dawn agents we see inside Oblivion gates.

Why Claudius Arcadia wanted Rufio dead.

If you talk to Rufio before you kill him, he refers to a women who he harmed in some way. Perhaps she was related to Claudius Arcadia, or was even his lover, and he wanted revenge.

• Actually, I think Arcadia wanted him dead because he killed his daughter while trying to rape her.
• Daughter? I guess that works too; I always thought it was his wife.

The Arch-Mage in Oblivion has a secret.

He's a vampire, a listener for the Dark Brotherhood, an escaped convict and the Grey Fox.

• Not to mention he's Sheogorath.

Who are you, at the end of Shivering Isles?

Gosh, I guess this just isn't Wild enough for Wild Mass Guessing... but, I'm gonna say it anyway: at the end of Shivering Isles, you begin a transformation from mortal to immortal Daedric Prince. Like the final boss says, "Mortal? King? God? ...Perhaps you will grow to your station." Clearly, he's implying that you are (or may) become something more than mortal. Your powers are weak, sure, FOR NOW! But you still have the ability to change the nature of your realm... somewhat. And smite fools... a bit. And, let's not forget that you are immortal. Not only thanks to that weak-ass 'teleport back to the throne' spell, but also because if you die, you can just reload a save! Totally immortal!

• So you're saying that you become a god at the end of shivering isles? Wasn't that stated outright?
  • Being Sheogorath, yes. This WMG appears to suggest that the Champion of Cyrodiil will grow increasingly fitted to the position, with the powers gained at the end of Shivering Isles being merely the start. That is not stated outright.
    • Confirmed. Sheogorath appears in Skyrim, looking and talking like Sheogorath from shivering isles, but mentions having been around for the whole Oblivion Crisis and drops a lot of seemingly random words that are associated with Oblivion quests.

Jyggalag was always the Prince of Madness

• Where as Sheogorath is the manic-depressive form of madness, Jyggalag is the obsessive-compulsive form. Everything in its place, everything orderly, taken to its horrifying conclusion.
• I Like this one.
• And the cycle of Greymarch is not exactly because of a curse, but rather a cycle of Split-Personality Takeover, and the PC was Sheogorath to begin with, thus in the end of SI the PC is simply reaffirming that identity, if we consider the implications of Jyggalag/PC as a case of Literal Split Personality and yet they are still both Daedric Princes themselves this might indicate that Jyggalag/Sheogorath was the strongest Daedric Prince, and this would justify the game-breaking exploits (which could possibly allow you to kill Mehrunes Dagon) as a manifestation of the PC's latent power as a fragment of the most powerful Daedric Prince.

The Mannimarco who appeared in Oblivion was an Impostor

• Think about it, they spend all of this time building him up, terrible, terrible stuff, go over his LONG history of evilness and cruelty, then what do we get? A puny squishy wizard. Answer? It was never Mannimarco at all, simply a impostor trading on his name.
  • Another theory is that it was Mannimarco, without the "God of Worms" bits. That might not seem like much of an explanation for why this Mannimarco is much less of a figure than the King of Worms we met in Daggerfall... unless, of course, the removal of the God of Worms was done by simply removing everything that made Mannimarco the God of Worms, including the bits that was simply "of Worms". That reputation we've gotten to hear over the games? Mannimarco as the King of Worms. The Mannimarco we met in Oblivion? Simply Mannimarco laying claim to a title no longer truly his (said title being the King of Worms. He still can rightly call himself Mannimarco).
  • Maybe Mannimarco was split into two beings after the Warp in the West, leaving the mortal Mannimarco and the god Mannimarco both as legitimate as the other. Considering he did mess around with the fundamentals of the universe it wouldn't be surprising.
    • This is confirmed by Word of God
  • Or maybe he remade his old body and used it was a decoy.
  • Reading (a little between the lines in) Necromancer's Moon reveals The Mannimarco you fight is the mortal Mannimarco left over after he both succeeded and failed at becoming a god in Daggerfall. This Mannimarco knows of the god Mannimarco, but hasn't access to any of the God of Worm's power.

The Falmer will play some kind of role, in absentia or not, in Skyrim.

• The Falmer being, for those less versed in the lore, the Snow Elves—the original Elven strain that inhabited Skyrim. As far as anybody knows, they're all gone, much like the Dwemer. But it's possible some parts of Skyrim might reference them or even make them a major plot point.
  • Confirmed to an extent. They're there and are fought in some rescue missions done for the Companions, but are essentially the Skyrim version of Goblins from Cyrodil. Its noted in some of the in game books that after they're defeat by the nords they fled underground, seeking refuge with the Dwemer, who blinded and enslaved them. They eventually devolved and once the Dwemer disappeared took over the empty dwarf city. The same book mentions that sightings of them have become far more frequent of late and hopes they aren't preparing to invade, so maybe they'll be given a bigger focus in DLC.
    • Yup, in Dawngaurd. You get to meet the last two non-bestial Falmer. Unfortunately, one set the events of the DLC into motion, and you have to kill him.

The guards in Daggerfall are artificially produced homunculi made from the same person

• They are produced in a big number, and only a few roam around the town. When a crime is committed, they show up and start spouting "HALT!", the one line of vocabulary they know.

The Dragon that you can summon towards the end of Skyrim will be Martin

from Oblivion

• The makers of the game have already clearly stated that you will be able to summon a 'named' dragon towards the end of Skyrim. Who better to help you combat the evil dragons in Skyrim sent by who is essentially Akatosh's evil sibling than the guy who turned into the avatar of the good dragon himself
  • probably jossed as Odahviing served Aldurin in ancient times.

The Elder Scrolls VI will feature the hero saving the whole of Tamriel from the Thalmor

• The High Elves have gone full Nazi, having conquered the wood elves and khajiit and already fought the Empire to a draw once. If canonically, the Empire loses in Skyrim and you kill the Emperor in the Dark Brotherhood Quest the whole continent could easily fall under their sway. Elder Scrolls VI will start with you as a political prisoner about to be executed by the Thalmor, only for your execution to be interrupted by either:
  • A. Azura: showed up to help the Nerevarine, so there's precedence.
  • B. Talos: has also showed up twice to give the hero help and advice and as founder of the Empire would be against elves enslaving everyone.
    • The Thalmor also has a goal to remove Talos from existence (thus, the whole 'ban Talos-worship' thing they have in Skyrim). Talos presumably would prefer to still exist, especially as he is a god of Men, and quite possibly one thing keeping mankind existing.
  • C. A returned Nevarine and Vivec who have returned from Akavir to find the Empire in ruins and Morrowind destroyed. However, Vivec's godly power is all but gone and the Nevarine's supposedly cured Corpus has gone terminal and they have singled you out to do the work for them. The Nevarine will be too deformed to be recognizable as anyone race or gender (solving the customization problems)and will only have enough strength to point you in the right direction.
  • E. Sheogorath: Who remembering his own past as a hero in a rare moment of lucidity rescues you and acts as the most hilarious schizophrenic mission control ever, giving frequent and hilariously wrong recollections of his own actions in IV along the way.
  • F. The Last Blade: boring but most likely.
  • G. Liberty Prime: Because... why not?
  • H. A mysterious stranger who, later on, will be revealed to be Martin, finally having stepped down from his position as the Avatar of Akatosh to enter Tamriel once more and come to reinstate the Empire in its time of greatest need, fully cementing him as a Messianic Archetype.
  • I. The Psijic Order. Taking a similar role to the Blades in Oblivion, they will act as your support faction. The Psijics have a history of conflict with the Thalmor, are primarily made up of high elves, thus showing not all are bad in a major way, and the College of Winterhold questline certainly sets up some plot threads to be tied up later that could easily tie into the main fight with the Thalmor.
    • And they still have the Eye of Magnus. Holy crap, what if they plan on using it to power the Numidium or something?!
  • J. The Dragonborn. He's back, and he's ready to destroy the Thalmor once and for all, either because he wants to get rid of the Empire's allies (if he's a Stormcloak) or because he wants to save the Empire from their control (if he's a Legionnaire). Of course, this would never happen due to having to establish a single canonical version of a past hero, but it would be awesome.
  • K. Paarthurnax and/or Odaviing, in a reversal of Alduin interrupting the Dovahkiin's execution.
  • L. Shor. What if the reason he didn't help the Last Dragonborn was because he was saving his energy for helping the next hero? Granted, this would cause problems if the player is an elf, but it could be that he might be helping an elf to try something different this time.
• Moreover, the lands under Thalmor occupation (at the time of Skyrim) are Elsweyr, Valenwood and the Summerset Isles, all places that have yet to be the focus of an Elder Scrolls game.
  • Also, Elsweyr and Valenwood put together are only about the size of Skyrim and smaller than Cyrodiil. Using both(or all three) in one game would provide for a great deal more variety in environments than either Oblivion or Skyrim while still keeping the same basic size of the game world.
    • Not that in-universe size has anything to do with the size of the game world — a less compressed game could allow for the variance that is there to be more obvious (take Oblivion, for instance. If one pays attention the environment is actually fairly varied, it's just that the areas that aren't somewhat rainy temperate forests are mostly relatively small and smooched up against borders).

  • Though the problem is, that Bethesda wrote themselves into a corner. In Elder Scrolls VI, they can't canonly state which side of the civil war won, as too many fans side with both and would be a massive Broken Base. So either they simply ignore the whole civil war backstory entirely, never mentioning Ulfric or Tullius. Or defeating Alduin created another "Warp in the (north)" causing both outcomes to be canon. Which doesn't even make sense.
    • They could always Take a Third Option and say that the Dragonborn fought both factions under the banner of the Blades. Of course, that would just piss off every fan who wanted to do that in Skyrim, but you win some, you lose some.
    • Another option would be to take Skyrim in the direction of Korea; the ceasefire that was negotiated as a (optional) part of the Main Quest has held, as in the wake of Alduin and his brood neither side had the resources to dedicate to a prolonged conflict. Afterwards it devolved into a cold war, with each side trying to establish some kind of concrete advantage over the other before coming to blows again, to ensure their victory. It would still step on some player's toes, but it would be in keeping with previous paths they've taken with canon, where the Protagonist only rarely canonically engages in sidequests.
    • Alternatively, the land that VI is set in could be on the receiving end of an information blackout at the hands of the Thalmor (either they'll clamp down on the presses and keep news of developments about Skyrim quiet if it's a land they control, or they'll have the borders controlled with orders not to let any couriers carrying news through if it's a land they don't control), and you'll be given the opportunity to either work on lifting it or begrudgingly keep it in order (maybe perhaps deciding that the Thalmor are too powerful right now and would crush any uprising that resulted from hearing of a Stormcloak victory, and regardless of your choice, you'll find out what happened, with the outcome depending on what path you chose - i.e., lifting the ban will have the player learn of the Stormcloaks winning, which would cause riots/rebellions, whereas keeping the ban in place would have the player learn that the Empire maintained control^note since their control would be the status quo).

The Champion of Cyrodil was supposed to be Emperor

• He/She was clearly in the position to become the next Emperor and restore peace and order to the continent. However, becoming Sheogorath robbed him of his sanity and soon the ability to manifest in the mortal realm at all. Thus, Chaos.

The Deadric realms of Oblvion are connected via a World Tree scenario.

There is some large interdimensional organism-like thing which every one of the realms of Ovlivion are anchored to. It is this "tree" that holds the realms together and it's magic is what allows the Deadra to remain immortal. The Aedra made great sacrifice to create Nirn, however the Deadra are still dependant on this "tree," though they may not know it. If any realm were to be cut off from it in some manner both it and any that reside in it would cease to exist, swallowed up by Sithis.

• Well in the Shivering Isles Sheogorath's servants, the Mazken and the Aureals, mention going to "the dark waters of Oblivion" when they 'die' and must travel back to the Shivering Isles^note  It's part of a quest where someone sabotages the gong that helps them find their way back, preventing their resurrection. The area is even called The Wellspring. Maybe those 'waters' are what separates/connects each Prince's realm and, like the World Tree, these waters all stem from the same source and are what sustains each plain.

Unrelenting Force will return in Elder Scrolls VI as a Greater Power for the Nords.

Because knocking guards around with nothing but your voice is just too awesome/hilarious to keep to just one game.

• While great, that would be horrendous lore breaking. Please don't.
  • What's so lore-breaking about it? The Thu'um is a learnable skill. It's not exclusive to the Dragonborn or the Greybeards by necessity; just look at Ulfric. And it was used in mass warfare in ancient times. It's totally possible that, after seeing the Dragonborn in action, a revival of the lost art occurred, resulting in a handful of Nords learning at least a shout or two. Also, it's not like NPCs use Greater Powers prodigiously, so it basically boils down to whether a Nord PC should have it. It doesn't have to be the whole Shout system from Skyrim, either; just "Fus" would be enough of a Continuity Nod.
    • One way could be that they'd introduce backgrounds in addition to racial abilities that would provide a different benefit, and one option would be that prior to showing up in (insert location of the next game here), the player trained with the Greybeards, with the race you're a part of determining what shout you start out with; given that Ulfric Stormcloak was shown to know Disarm in addition to Unrelenting Force, it's not a stretch to imagine that the Greybeards know shouts other than UF, Whirlwind Sprint, and that Phantom shout you never learn.

Climbing will return in a later game as an Argonian ability.

Because lizard ninjas.

• Why leave it only to Argonians? Let everyone join in the fun.

M'aiq the Liar is a powerful Daedric prince with Dungeon Master qualities and is manipulating the events of at least the last 3 games.

Like he says in Oblivion, he knows much and tells some. The point is, his knowledge goes much deeper than even the most wise scholar could dream of. Its so deep, that when he tells something, this knowledge changes the world enormously.

For example, during Oblivion, he told the player that throwing weapons is foolish, because when holding your weapon you only need one. This causes the entire continent of Tamriel to forget how to make throwing weapons. He also told Levitation is for fools...and the levitation act is signed, outlawing it. And cryptically makes clear the player will see a dragon, resulting in the main quest ending.

In Skyrim he even starts to get freakier. He appears at the most random locations, as if he is observing you from a distance. He calls mudcrabs 'horrible creatures' turning them into threats to low-level players. Then he decides to practically doom Tamriel by saying dragons were never gone, only invisible, which causes Alduin and his lackeys to go on a rampage. One can only hope he will not utter knowledge about the end of the world...

• Or maybe he's just a very knowledgable Daedric prince (but not directly influencing events). At any rate, he does first appear a whoopin' 703 years before the events of Arena (in Online); 948 years before the events of Skyrim.

Argonian breasts produce Hist sap.

This would easily explain why argonians can be hatched and raised away from Argonia/Black Marsh, and justify the fact that female argonians have knockers.

There will be a Skyrim expansion set in Morrowind

The events of the Infernal City novels basically trash Morrowind as a whole plot point. Red Mountain erupts, Argonians invade, and the Dunmer are forced to evacuate pretty much the entire province. Starting a Dunmer character in Skyrim prompts Hadvar to wonder if you are "another refugee", presumably from said events. The current state of Morrowind can easily be written into the backstory of an expansion. The Nerevarine could even make an appearance, being made immortal during TES III.

• The specific area of Morrowind featured may be Solstheim, which we know was officially ceded by Skyrim to the Dunmer as a refuge. After all, the enviroment and many of the creatures are already in Skyrim, so that saves time and space, Solstheim is an island, so the need for artificial borders are decreased, and finally, we know the Bloodmoon is at hand again... as for the Nerevarine showing up, however, they'll almost certainly avoid that - they sent him or her to Akavir for a reason, namely to avoid having to give any details that could contradict a play-through.
• The bulk of Morrowind is already in the game. Mostly untextured, completely unpopulated, and impossible to get to without exploits, but it's there.

Comfirmed! There is a skyrim DLC coming out called "dragonborn" and will be set in solstheim.

• Though whether or not Solstheim can still technically be considered part of Morrowind is debatable.
  • It's pretty much New Morrowind at this point and was given to the Dunmer by the Nords.

The Champion Of Cyrodiil was driven crazy by watching the world fall apart

Not getting into why the new Sheogorath looks like the old one, one could imagine that the hero, now immortal and an eternal witness to the fate of the world, had to watch as the Empire fell apart, the provinces break apart, Morrowind suffer near destruction, their own efforts practically spat on by a group taking credit, and in general... everything they fought so hard for crumbling away into nothing despite their best efforts. The new Sheogorath isn't crazy and jaded because of some inherited madness, but because of the stress of it all. At least in the Shivering Isles, things are more constant and he/she is better in control of everything.

There will be a Skyrim expansion set in Bruma.

Bruma, as seen in Oblivion, is culturally and environmentally similar to Skyrim, with a healthy Nord population. As such, it's possible that the Stormcloaks would want to capture the county and annex it into a hold of Skyrim. Or more likely, this would be a DLC quest, since it probably isn't big enough to warrant an entire expansion pack.

• I'd think it being culturally and environmentally similar to Skyrim is a pretty good reason not to include it. If there was one complaint about Skyrim's environment it was that it didn't have enough diversity. Personally I think the complaint is baseless, but focusing on an area that we've seen to be snowy and mountainous isn't going to help that case.
• Jossed No new expansions for Skyrim.

• No official DLC, but there is the Beyond Skyrim: Bruma mod.

M'aiq the Liar is a Time Lord.

In Oblivion, M'aiq says he's seen dragons, but he won't say where. He already experienced the events in Skyrim, then used his Type 70 TARDIS to travel back to the Oblivion Crisis.

• A tinier offbreed of Dragons, called Dragonlings. Were enemies in Daggerfall, which took place less than a decade before Oblivion. That is probably what he meant.

The Dwemer were Time Lords

They had highly advanced technology, and were considered the most advanced race in the history of Tamriel. They knew how to make boxes that were bigger on the inside (as seen in Skyrim's main quest). They had steampunk, clockwork cities. They were Abusive Precursors and they all disappeared without a trace, supposedly due to meddling in things they aught not have. For all we know, their disappearance was Time Locked by M'aiq.

The Player Character is the reincarnation of the same person in all the Elder Scrolls Games.

In Morrowind, we are told that the 'Player Character' is a reincarnation of a Chimer (Dark Elf) Lord named Nerevar. This wasn't the only incarnation for this character. The Prisoner at the start of Oblivion is another reincarnation. The Prisoner at the start of Skyrim is another. The prisoner at the beginning of Daggerfall was a past one. Its the same guy/gal coming back time and time again like a cosmic trouble shooter. This makes Nerevar truly a Hero of Another Story from a "lost" Elder Scrolls Game that never got made (with the first battle against Dagoth Ur being the final boss battle).

• Can this be reconciled with the Champion of Cyrodil's ascension to Sheogorath?
  • His/Her soul was split in two?
• While you can choose to RP your Skyrim character as your Oblivion/Morrowind character, it won't work for the Oblivion prisoner to be the reincarnated Morrowind prisoner, because Oblivion takes place six years after the events of Morrowind.
  • Since it's said that The Nerevarine went missing on an expedition to Akavir, it's possible that the character died there in time to be reincarnated for Oblivion.
    • Actually, it's not. The main blow against this theory is that, disregarding souls being split beforehand, there simply isn't enough time between Morrowind and Oblivion — six years. Children canonically exists and grow up at a roughly natural rate, remember? Daggerfall/Morrowind is also a stretch, since while the start of the game is enough to give a gap to Morrowind, we have a canonical explicit date for when the end occured — ten years before Morrowind.
    • While it is impossible for the PC of Morrowind to be the reincarnation of the PC of Oblivion, it's not uncommon for people to RP them as being the same character, only having suffered some deleveling effect between games, and the supposed expedition to Akivir nothing more than a wild rumor.
  • If you RP a vampire, being immortal, is a good way to merge the three characters. Being thrown in prison for a long time is your way to erase your old identity and start a new blank one.
• There's actually a good chance that this is true. There's a persistent theory that all of the PC's are Shezzarines, incarnations/avatars of Shezzar aka Lorkhan aka Shor. The Oblivion hero was said to be a reincarnation of Pelinal Whitestrake, who was referred to as a Shezzarine. There's a lot of hints that the Dragonborn is a reincarnation of Talos, who's practically a confirmed Shezzarine (which would make him and the Skyrim hero avatars of both Lorkhan and Akatosh). The Nerevarine and earlier heroes are a bit more iffy.

The Elder Scrolls 'Verse is literally an RPG 'Verse

This is a little hard to phrase, but bear with me. The Elder Scrolls universe in reality was adapted from the creators' D&D campaign. But the series does not take place in its own "Universe", but rather we are seeing what life would be like for actual characters in an actual RPG universe. First, the PC literally does not exist until you create him/her at the start of a new game. No history, no family, no friends, no background whatsoever other than "race" and "class". Second, the Multiple-Choice Past of the world's history means that history is flexible. Only possible with a GM-induced Retcon. Finally, and most important: The Elder Scrolls themselves. Even Paarthunax can't easily explain what they are, only that they are "fragments of creation" and "come from outside time". They can't be comprehended by the people living there. What are they? They are the GM's notes.

• You lost me.
• If I get what you're saying... you're saying that TES games are not games where we, the players, control a character (like the Dragonborn) within TES universe. Instead, we, the players, control a D&D gamer, who in turn is roleplaying his D&D character.
• I think the idea is that we are playing a fictional character in a fictional world, but we are one of the few aware of the fact. For the most part, it functions like any other world.

Dwemer Metal is actually Conundrum mixed in with something else

The "Secret recipe" used in making Dwemer metal has been lost in time, as well as the Dwemer. In Skyrim, underneath certain Dwemer ruins is "Blackreach", where Geode veins can be found. This COULD be their source of metal! You can only find Conundrum, Gems and Soul gems (which they could have used to power their machines). Conundrum and Dwemer metal are also a similar colour to each other.

If "Elder Scrolls VI" is kept to one province, it will be the Summerset Isles

War with the Dominion is all but a foregone conclusion by now. The only question is whether the war will be Skyrim DLC or (as guessed above) the next game itself. Either way, Men weren't allowed on the Isles even when the Altmer were good guys, so a war/post-war occupation would be a perfect chance for Bethesda to have a game in that province and still have Men as PC's.

• Besides, judging from the map, the Summerset Isles are in the tropics, i.e. a change of scenery from Bitter Up North Skyrim
• It may be argued that having the Second Great War be the focus of a game set in Summerset Isles would be problematic in that if the anti-Thalmor factions are already there and able to supply themselves, most of the war would already be over (since for that to the case, Old Mary's navy would have to be neutralized — which means the Bosmer territories and Khajiit vassal states are cut off from the Dominion's heart and one of the Dominion's two strengths have been crushed [note that even Tiber Septim had to resort to Big Stompy Robot to breach Summerset]). On the other hand, third time's the charm, the descriptions of Summerset's architecture allows^note assuming Bethesda doesn't handle it in the way they did Cyrodiil and the Imperial City in Oblivion for very different scenery to Skyrim, and there's nothing keeping them from making it a post-War setting.
  • Though it's worth noting that Tiber Septim only needed the Big Stompy Robot because at that time he had lost his ability to Shout due to his throat being slit during a failed assassination attempt.

Martin becoming the Avatar of Akatosh was the equivalent of The Second Coming for the people of the empire.

Notice how in Oblivion alot of people had lost faith in the Aedra and gone to the Daedra. No one is like that by Skyrim, so Akatosh actually coming down managed to convince many people to stay faithful.

Vivec's first mom is also a robot/cyborg

Vivec's first mom is possibly built by Sotha Sil or otherwise master-crafted to be able to carry Egg!Vivec inside. She also stays intact despite all the Dwemer efforts to get Egg!Vivec out of her. The prayer that Vivec gives her is probably some kind of shutdown signal, as he figures out that if the Dwemer don't remove him then he is gonna be stuck there forever.

The Dwemer, being who they are, are so fascinated by this Robot Girl / cyborg that they try to duplicate her, although their simulacrum doesn't work as well and therefore breaks down.

It's possible that the eighth monster-child, GULGA MOR JIL, is likewise related to Vivec's first mother. It has the exact same shutdown signal.

Elder Scrolls VI will be in Hammerfell

Bethesda may want to replicate Skyrim's Awesome-Not-Strictly-Magicka system, and since the thu'um is a thoroughly Nord matter, just transplanting it to another province would be odd. But the Redguard have had this thing called the Way of the Spirit Sword, mostly lost in the modern day. Add in some reason for the player character to have a natural ability to jump the learning barriers (as Skyrim had for the thu'um via the Dragonborn thing), and some extension of the Shehai/Ansei's implied not-quite-swordly abilities, and it's perfect.

• There will be songs to summon enchanted swords for various purposes, and not only swords, maces, axes warhammers and bows.
• Fuck Yeah Sword Singing!
• This will be the return of The Ebonarm
• Seems like a waste, seeing as we already had a game that took place in Hammerfell. Now, if Bethesda decided to remake Daggerfall for modern gamers, that would be different.
• You could probably use Hist Trees to a similar effect though, and the Argonians are in a better place to follow up on the Thalmor story.

The heroes in every game is a reincarnation of the previous one.

Not sure how it works completely, due to some time issues between the first three or four games, due to time issues.... It'll either be Time Lord style, or the reincarnation style from Avatar: The last airbender.

• You could say that it was ordained by one of the major gods of the setting that feels that the spirit of the hero is required in each generation. The only problem this theory would face is that if the Hero of Cyrodill really is the new Shegorath then it is impossible for him and his supposed Dragonborn reincarnation to be meeting face to face.

The Elder Scrolls is a prequel to the Fallout series and the magic is gone because of a major apocalyptic event

The events of the Elder Scrolls happened so many thousands of years ago that Earth doesn't have any memory of that civilization's existence beyond mythology and tales that were passed down through multiple generations. Some sort of apocalypse happened that destroyed most of the magic and through evolution humanity became the dominant species as the others died out. How then does Fallout tie into this? Nuclear power. As it turns out nuclear power is a type of magic that was left over from the apocalypse and humans through science weaponized it by turning it into a bomb, unknowingly utilizing power from their ancestors' era. That is why radiation transforms humans into things like Ghouls or Super Mutants, and animals into special versions of themselves (i.e. ants turn into giant ants, giant scorpions, etc.) because exposure to the old magic is bringing them closer genetically to what their ancestors were like.

None of the player characters from any of the games are in any way related to one another.

They're just five random yet extraordinary people called on to do extraordinary things. They're not related by blood, they aren't reincarnations, and with the exception of the Dragonborn and the Champion of Cyrodiil, none of them ever met each other.

The Elder Scrolls is a precursor to the events of the Legend of Zelda

Two fantasy settings with all sorts of diverse/cool kingdoms and locations to travel in, and interesting characters and enemies to interact with; how can that simply be a coincidence? I'm putting this here just because.

• Bethesda is going to collaborate with Philips to create the Elder Scrolls CD-I. The game will start off with the player character locked in Tykogi Tower with Glutko, who was imprisoned for eating King Harkinian's dinner. As the PC is about to be executed by being fed to a hungry Glutko, Ganon and his Minions show up to save Glutko, thus allowing the PC to escape. You can either choose to join King Harkinian's side to defeat Ganon and be invited to dinner at the end of the main quest and recieve King Harkian's superpowered Dinner Blaster, or join Ganon and have the greatest face in Koridai after completing the main quest. Another new questline will be assisting the Pesky Plumbers in their search for a picnic. After completing the Hotel Mario questline, Fat Mario will give you his magic toaster so you can burn the faces of your enemies into the pit and Gay Luigi will become available as a follower. Another feature will be whenever you are caught commiting a crime, Mayor Kravindish shows up to remind you that what you did is illegal, and then the Imperial legion show up with the classic "STOP RIGHT THERE CRIMINAL SCUM!" If you joined Ganon, Militron will be the master trainer in Destruction and Heavy Armor, and will be available as an extremely powerfull and badass follower. There will also be a quest to explore the ruins of Koridai, and learn more about the powerful immortal wizard named Mr. Koridai who created the island. The PC can not only learn and use dragon shouts, but can use the power of his/her dragon voice to sing Doo-wop with Ganon and the Gwonams. The reward for doing this is increased power for dragon shouts and decreased time between shouts. Bombs will be available as new weapons, and the PC will be able to make bombs, or buy them from Morshu. The PC will be able to make super bombs if he/she is a master in smithing, alchemy, destruction, and enchanting by combining bombs with lamp oil, rope, magic, and filled soul gems. After completing the Hotel Mario quest and clearing all seven Koopa Hotels, Koopa Motels will be available as a new dungeon.

• There is an Oblivion PC mod that actually puts Zelda BEFORE Elder Scrolls... the idea being that the Aldmeri met the Hylians some point after the established Zelda games(presuming the "child link" timeline) and the Aldmeri "corrupting" the Hylians into melding with them and enslaving all humans. with the only descendant of Link being a coward and a slave, he refused to fight, but after Alessia freed everyone, managed to return to Hyrule, gather the Master Sword and a few other relics, and hid them in one of the Ayleid ruins for someone to eventually find... granted, this backstory was thrown in as an excuse to dump a bunch of Zelda-themed weapons and armor in the game by a modder, but still...

• "Relics of Hyrule", a popular Skyrim mod, goes with the idea that Hyrule is separate, somehow. Whether a different planet or dimension, or a far-off continent, isn't really clarified, but whichever the case is you're dealing with a long-past aftermath of some timeline where Ganondorf allied with the Daedric princes. But then the Switch port added several items from the franchise in as useful equipment as well as allowing elven races to have blue eyes(this is not possible in the other ports), just to further confuse matters.

There is no central hero in any central game.

The grand achievements of each game (becoming Arch-Mage, the Madgod, Dragonborn etc.) are completed by at least two different individuals in each time of turmoil. Every time one of these occurs (that is, every major game so far), a warp similar to that which occured in the course of Daggerfall happens, as fate reorganises events to depict these grand achievements as the actions of a single individual. Sheogorath is an unlucky special case: being a Daedric Prince, and thus immortal, has left him even more confused before, as he reconciles his memories with the retconned reality.

TES 6 will have a title that's next in an alphabetical sequence.

Could be just a wild crackpot guess, but seeing as we have Arena, Daggerfall, Morrowind, Oblivion and Skyrim, the next game could possibly start with a letter that's after S.

• A further hint to support the Valenwood theory.
• Technically Summerset would be an option — S is (of course) not a letter after S, but u comes after k. Hopefully not, though — it's a bit much to jump to 'the Thalmor are near defeat' (as must be the case if Men are wandering around on Summerset Isle) from 'the Thalmor run what is at the very least the second most powerful empire on Tamriel'.
• Names can be decieving. Oblivion was technically set in Cyrodil, and Arena gave you all of Tamriel. Even if the theory holds true, there's no reason why they couldn't set it in Black Marsh and call it Widewalker or something (I think that's Argonian slang for a foreigner).
• Possibly confirmed with ESO being subnamed Tamriel Unlimited, meaning the next SP TES would need a name after T and possibly U...which is another mark in the Valenwood column.
• It's worth noting that so far, the naming pattern seems to be odd-numbered games in the main series get named after the full providence the game is set in (Arena being the exception, set in the entirety of Tamriel), whereas even-numbered ones don't seem to have a concrete pattern (Daggerfall doesn't seem to have a concrete reason as to why it's called such, and as for Oblivion, it's named after the plane of Tamriel).

A future game will take place in Argonia

And will allow the player to support the continued independence of the Argonian nation from the Empire, as Skyrim allowed the player to fight for Skyriim's independence.

• If Black Marsh hasn't seceeded from the empire by the next game I'll be shocked. Black Marsh is pretty rough, and you can't beat the argonians in their home turf.

Dragons will still be around for TES VI

The next game wont take place too long after the events of skyrim, so dragons can still be found as boss like enemies which appear very rarely. the dragonborn didn't absorb the souls of EVERY dragon.

• Alternate theory, the Dragonborn will absorb enough dragon souls to manifest a dragon body for his/her purposes and will appear as a NPC.
  • There will likely also be more good oriented dragons this time around. Partially because of Paarthurnaax (Who will likely be forgotten, unless your choices in skyrim affect this one) and the Dovahkiin's work to reach some level of piece. However I imagine a few dragons will still be bosses, either in lairs or as a 'rare' encounter.

Jyggalag created Haskill

Haskill appears to be a male Breton, only he's been alive at least since the time of Jyggalag's reign(why he didn't outright tell you about the details of the Greymarch... we can understand Sheogorath being a massive troll, it's how he is, but Haskill kept quiet...) and is mentioned to still be around in Skyrim's time. He knows how Jyggalag thinks and behaves and despite the realm of Sheogorath being wipe dout in every Greymarch, Haskill oddly survives the destruction. Either Jyggalag took a human and made him immortal, or Haskill is a daedric entity- perhaps a daedra given human form, or a fragmented piece of Jyggalag himself.

Haskill acts in a calm and proper manner, unlike the rest of the Shivering Isles. He hates Jyggalag but that doesn't mean he didn't once work for him.

• Haskill arguably is a lesser daedric entity, given the way he talks about mortals/Tamriel in the game and bonus materials (there are plenty of other daedra that look like people, you can even be mistaken for one in Battlespire). So he survives the same way the Mazken and Aureal do, by respawning afterwards, and he knows how Jyggalag operates because Order makes for the least creative Prince ever and the Greymarch has happened countless times before. However, simply being outwardly professional doesn't mean you're sane, and the obvious reason he didn't spill the beans to you early is that he is loyal and obedient to his master's plans for you.

The Thalmor will be defeated by the time of the next TES game

By the Argonians.

• Hist tree: "Here's Sheogorath's 'launch a giant rock from oblivion and/or space at them' and 'teleport hostile several thousand feet up' spells!" Cue the capitol of the Dominion being hit by a big rock from space, and it raining Thalmor corpses all over Tamriel.

Most or all the player characters are created by the elder scrolls themselves, or are an entity variant of them.

The hero is never definite and at some times seems to simply vanish from reality, or should the achievements be written down or remembered quite literally change between sources. Now what does this remind you of? The thing the entire series was named after. Seriously. Plus, the Dovahkiin from Skyrim reads two different Elder Scrolls (possibly more if you try to read them outside a plot force), and doesn't go blind beyond a stagger, though this may be because player characters and dragon souls make for skipping the adverse effects. Plus, even the more hostile or randomly deadly princes never instant-kill the PC unless they're quite literally asking for it (ex. attempting to kill Sheogorath during the Shivering Isles), no matter how much Sheogorath wants to rip out your entrails, he suspiciously refrains from doing so. Presumably being a prophetic scroll thingy in man, mer, or beast form, they want you as opposed to shredding you.

• Also, it's implied that Elder Scrolls are indestructible (in the Dawnguard DLC you can ask a Moth Priest about making 3 elder scrolls into indestructible armor, which you sadly cannot do to acquire armor that hits the armor cap and then some on its own) and are definitely capable of violating space and time as fragments of creation (Paarthurnax says at one point they are outside of time, and a loading screen or book from Skyrim implies they change in number and function for no discernable reason between world-threatening crises), so you can just reload a save whenever killed, and put on the god mode if you so desire via in-universe console commands (Vivec was not joking) etc.

The daedric princes are mostly bitter enemies by now.

Well, imagine someone completes all the daedric quests and major questlines. Obviously, hero has pledged his soul to waaaay too many factions to sort it out fast. Barring Sheogorath's order-by-Jygallag nature manifesting early (pre-Shivering Isles) or Jygallag constructing a nice even timetable for everyone to share the toy (post-Shivering Isles), everyone has probably been arguing like mad over who gets the thing. In rare cases, the hero had enough filled soulgems to pay off everybody and go where he wants, but really, someone must have been low on extra souls and caused an argument. And these are the embodiments of concepts, some of which are less than friendly and conductive to calm diplomacy.

Alternatively

Every single time a hero pledges his/her soul to more than one party, he or she just goes and gets some filled soulgems and pays them off and instead goes wherever he or she wants. The Dragonborn can pull a higher-value version using dragon and dragonborn (as of Miraak dying) souls. Presumably the daedra are fairly lax about this, considering that the few times it happened the champion in question either became immortal, Sheogorath, already had Azura's claim from the beginning, has Akatosh's claim and is ordered to Sovngarde regardless of race, etc.

There are racial afterlives for everyone.

So yes, there IS a Khajiti Sovngarde-equivalent somewhere. Orcs probably just get sent to somewhere run by Malacath, so there may be an actual settlement on Ashpit's 'backbone'. The Dunmer probably have an afterlife run between Boethiah, Azura, and Mephala, possibly more daedra. Argonians are reincarnated via Hist, and if a major population change occurs more souls will be created for an increase and stored possibly on what remains of the Plane of the Hist, possibly the Um-Hist, or just in the same Hist providing said souls.

Jygallag's duties have been mostly spread between other Princes during his curse, and he's having to trudge through Oblivion trying to get them back.

Peryite and Hermaeus Mora got the most out of it. Peryite got some of the duties related to order, and so used pestilence to make it happen. Herma-Mora got Jygallag's library (Apparently Sheogorath watches MLP and used teleportation fire to send the library to Apocrypha, or the 'burning' was faked and the library entered Apocrypha through the waters of Oblivion intact) because what better for the prince of knowledge and fate than a library that effectively IS fate? Hermaeus Mora also probably has an organization system for his library, but it is extremely arcane, eldritch, and generally bizarre and ordered more on a basis of land formations, sub-planes, and islands than an ordered library of shelves. Sheogorath-form Jygallag got/kept many of the realm's duties, but probably neglected almost all of them beyond "Don't dump the realm into the void, please.", even terraforming the Shivering Isles to some extent (I can't imagine the line-form-order Jygallag standing for such chaotic architecture. The islands either resembled a big square or a normal brain. Presumably the cities and such were added between Greymarches.) et cetera. Some of the other duties and powers may have went elsewhere (The Soul Cairn and/or Azura probably have a standing deal over whatever Hearts of Order are or similar), but most remained Sheogorath's and were accordingly neglected.

The Adoring Fan can cast Auto-Life

He just happens to possess a much weaker version of the ability than most portrayals. He happens to know exactly how annoying he is, and so casts Auto-Life on himself before meeting with the Grand Champion, just in case s/he should turn on him. After a few days (due to the weakness of the spell) he revives, recasts it just in case, and picks himself up to go and search for the Grand Champion again, just because he's that determined to be of some help. Perhaps that's also how he manages to survive being left on a snowy mountain top for weeks because the Champion just wants him to go away. The reason he never brings it up is so that no one can cast Dispel and then kill him, and the reason he never casts it on the Champion is because he sees him/her as being so flawless, he'd never imagine them falling in combat.

• Actually Word of God flipflops this. If you read Cicero's journal in skyrim. It is a detailed report of an assassination contract where Cicero disguised himself as an Arena fan in the Imperial City, in an attempt to accompany, and then assassinate, the Grand Champion while escorting him through the forest... yet killing the fan allows you into The Dark Brotherhood...

Azura plans to integrate herself into Mundus without losing any power

This is only to further another one of her plans, but hey. She seems to be doing lots of things that you'd expect the aedra to be doing, and even her portfolio (dawn and dusk) seems something naturally expected in the earthlike mundus as a baseline fabric of reality, unlike things that are less than naturally part of the world (Such as Clavicus Vile's portfolio), etc.

• She modifies mer stock into Khajiti (for good stuffs) and the Chimer then Dunmer (a teamup with Mephala and Boethiah to get their own investments, then taking over more when her commands were disobeyed to gain superiority)
• She allows something bound to her essence to be altered, possibly in hopes of being able to pull an Oblivion Crisis like thing with far less effort. Azura could do more drastic things than just some visions and hallucinations, and some of the latter are actually other daedric princes' portfolios. Such as extreme bodily modifications and/or sending hordes of khajit and dunmer after said offender. Azura could even recall the artifact to Oblivion, or have someone rescue it before the breakages as opposed to after.
• She nurses the Nerevarine into her great champion, and proceeds to down the Tribunal and Dagoth Ur, possibly in practice of the aedric principle of making champions into great heroes who reshape history.
• She begins working into multiple-artifact territory by Nerevar's Moon-and-Star, possibly trying to have more power in Mundus should she try said invasion.

Azura hates Dunmer race and Morrowind.

She became jealous when she saw Tribunal manipulating the Heart to become a godlike creatures. She tried to curse the entire race, but they became a successfull nation led by Tribunal instead of dying in fear and despair. Azura still needed to take revenge, so she manipulated Nevevarine to destroy the Heart. That led to destruction of Morrowind province, Dunmer genocide and Tribunal's final disappearance. Nerevarine then became unuseful, but too powerful, and Azura got rid of him.

The Ideal Masters are the result of Black-Soul Gems on Black-Souled Daedra like Dremora.

Daedra are eternal; but their power can be redestributed. (Just ask Clavicus Vile.) When a Dremora's soul is captured; its animus and properties do go to the black soul gem; and their "daedric status" is transferred to the black soul gem itself. When said Black Soul Gem is used up; the gem "died" on Mundus; but like all Daedra when "killed" it gets sent to a plane of Oblivion; in this case the Soul Cairn as living Black Soul Gems. Multiple daedric soul gems congregate and become the large floating Crystals known as Ideal Masters. This is why there are no Dremora ghosts in the Soul Cairn; and this is why the Ideal Masters are relatively "new"; it took a while since Mannimarco's ascension for Necromancer's to trap enough Dremora souls. (Even then, they usually focus on weaker humans; a lot of their creation can be credited to heroes like the Hero of Kvatch, or the Dragonborn.)

• Whether the Ideal Masters and Mannimarco are on the same "side" is not known.
  • This is why Meridia can't stand undead and necromancers so much; the Ideal Masters are a rising power in Oblivion that will upset the balance for everything.

Both Azura and Hermaeus Mora will be "corrupted" in later games.

Azura's by the shattering and possessing of her Star; increased by a magnitude if the Black Star is canon. She will be more influenced by the Necromancers and the Ideal Masters. Hermaeus Mora's change will be trickier. The secrets he absorbed from the Skall were "how to talk to the wind, how to listen to the earth." Mora is the Lord of Things Man Was Not Meant to Know....what happens when it learns things man should know? Mora will start to be driven sane by the revelation.

Jyggalag will play a big role in a future game or DLC.

Jyggalag was so powerful that the other Daedric Lords put a curse on him, and at the end of Shivering Isles the curse is broken and he is free to roam Oblivion. Chances are he'll regain that power and will probably cause trouble in the Mortal Realm, most likely being the main antagonist of a future Elder Scrolls game or DLC.

Hermaeus Mora is an aspect of the Aka-Tusk oversoul along with Auri-El, Alduin and Akatosh

Xarxes was Auri-El's scribe, yet he's also Hermaeus Mora's scribe. Time and fate is part of Hermaeus Mora's domain, just like a certain dragon. In addition, he has an exceptionally keen interest in dragonborns, which as we all know, have the souls of dragons, which are part of Akatosh.

Hermaeus Mora is impersonating Shor/Lorkhan who is infact Alduin God of Destruction and Chaos.

Evidence:

1:One of Hermaeus Mora's tomes was found in a chest supposedly holding the Heart of Lorkhan(which in Morrowind is destroyed).

2:Hermaeus Mora claims whenever you refuse service to him that you were already his pawn.

3:Alduin is mentioned in an obscure text to have corrupted and banished Mehrunes Dagon while Mankar Camoran claims that Lorkhan did it so for both to be true than Lorkhan and Alduin must be one and the same and yet....

4:Lorkhan/Shor ordered his champions to help kill Alduin..... Or did he?.....

5:'mien is too bright for mortal eyes' which shows that the Shor who ordered Shor's Champions to kill Alduin is too bright for one to see his form so obviously they wouldn't know if they were looking at Hermaeus Mora.

This would mean that Lorkhan/Shor is the Big Bad and that Hermaeus Mora is the Big Good who helped save the world without us knowing it!

A later game will have Jyggalag, Sheogorath and Hermaeus Mora helping you fight Alduin and Mehrunes Dagon at once!

Jyggalag seemed to be on good terms with the new Sheogorath who's an enemy of Mehrunes Dagon who was corrupted by Alduin and considering the evidence for the above WMG Hermaeus Mora is Alduin's archnemesis and thus would be present for the big showdown between them.

Mehrunes Dagon was killed sometime after ES IV: Shivering Isles

The Hero of Kvatch AKA Divine Crusader, by the end of ES IV, has killed TWO mortals-turned-daedra with their own realms, and wrested control of an entire plane of Oblivion from a daedric prince. What those three instances provided was a nice learning curve and experience in defeating "immortal" daedra.

• Mankar Camoran being (potentially) the first was no doubt the easiest of them all (being the most recent convert)
• Umaril the Unfeathered (who by that point had spent more time as a daedra than as an elf) had much longer to work with his private army from Meridia
• Sheogorath/Jyggalag had been doing the Graymarch for who knows how many epochs (and like playing chess with yourself, he probably learned a lot).

So... now s/he's a daedric prince and canonically cut off from Nirn by the last of the dragonfires, has an shiny new army of Mazkin & Aureal daedra, is able to move easily around the planes of Oblivion, and knows Mehrunes Dagon is hurting from that last battle with Akatosh (as daedra can take centuries to reform).

What would a person who's had all that bad blood between them and Mehrunes Dagon do next? Invade the personally-weakened enemy realm with a full scale invasion of the Deadlands, perhaps? Maybe with some Aedra allies from the Nine Divines and/or a few Knights of Order?

Also, Sheogorath's appearance and Mehrunes Dagon's voice in Skyrim could be explained as impersonations. We may not even know what Sphere of influence the new daedric prince has, as Jyggalag could have just been Driven to Madness by the other princes' curse altering his true nature, and it might not affect an ex-mortal same way.

Nirn is Earth thousands of years after nuclear war.

The massive radiation release and a second moon coming into Earth's orbit caused magic to come back, the Asians and other minor races evolved into the elves, Khajit, Dwemer, and Argonians, and other strange creatures such as trolls, giants, and dragons appeared.

The war took place between the United States and Russia following a series of incidents in Ukraine, and shortly after woolly mammoths were cloned back into existence. Over a period of thousands of years, continental drift was screwed up by the amount of nuclear weapons detonated, the Fallout series took place, and humanity regressed to medieval living conditions. Guns are no more, meaning the only ranged weapons left are catapults, bows and arrows, and crossbows. Swords, axes, daggers, and warhammers reign supreme. Over time, knowledge of the old Earth faded across the generations, even the name of the planet. By the Fourth Era, the people of Nirn believe both of the moons are gods, and the stars are holes to an alternate reality. This is all religion-related; they're still balls of dirt/hydrogen.

Apparently, over the thousands of years, much of the radiation actually left through massive holes in the ozone and drifted to the sun, providing it with more fuel, which is why it hasn't gone red giant yet.

• So basically, it's Adventure Time?
• Well, considering we have a race of Corrupt Corporate Executive Anything That Moves cat-people, I think we have some explanation

The Elder Scrolls come from beyond the fourth wall

Who could have created something so weird that even the gods would be afraid of it? Something that can look backwards and forward in time?

The programmers!

Claimer: I am a programmer. Worship me.

Nelley-Bright the Princess of Kflies will eventually fix something related to the Breaking.

Well, fixing the whole certain Magna-Ge being kicked out (Meridia) or negatively altered (Mnumbrial and others) problem would probably usher in a new and more beautiful order.

Insanity and clocks have some subtle connection, and Sheogorath is aware of the Fourth Wall

Anyone who touches the Heart of Lorkhan goes insane. Which inspired Sotha Sil to build a Clockwork City. Clocks being otherwise alien to Tamriel. The only other instance of a clock appearing, is that Sheogorath has one on his waistcoat in Skyrim. Seeing as all insanity is inspired through Sheogorath, clocks seem to have some meaning towards insanity in that universe. Or simply rather, Sheogorath brought a concept from "Our world" into Tamriel. Breaking the fourth wall. He has done this before in Oblivion, as he was the only character in-game with a beard. Something no other NPC in the entire game had. He literally pushes the boundaries of reality because it's fun.

The Thalmor literally have no chance of winning

The Thalmor may have the Empire on their side, with control of the Summerset Isles, Cyrodill, Highrock, Valenwood, and Elsewyr. The Dragonborn in turn is friends with Parthunaax who is now the new leader of the dragons, so s/he has an entire dragon army at his/her back, not to mention every Nord in Tamriel (Even more-so if The Stormcloaks won the civil war) and all of Black Marsh and Hammerfell (The only two provinces to successfully fight back against the Thalmor) would be more than happy to join the resistance. So to clarify, army of Dragons, Nords, Redguards, and Argonians. Nords and Redguards being considered (Aside from Orcs) the most badass warriors in Tamriel, and Argonians were so badass they actually managed to cause the Daedra to retreat and stop opening Oblivion gates within BlackMarsh, during the events of Oblivion so with that much influence backing The Dragonborn up, many who had previously defected to The Thalmor will be boldened and join the resistence as well. That much power against The Thalmor there is no chance for them.

• They don't even have the Empire on their side. The Empire is in a truce with them, but would turn on them the second the scales tip against the Thalmor.

Galathil is the reason Uriel looks different in all his appearances.

Galathil is an Altmer, meaning she can live for centuries, if not millenia. So it's entirely possible she was around long before the Oblivion Crisis — and if so, why not before Jagar Tharn usurped the throne? Galathil even claims that she has practiced her arts on the Imperial nobility.

The Next Elder Scrolls will be called dominion

It will be set in a combination of Black Marsh and the Summerset Isles. With Black Marsh's Saxheel army and refugees from thalmor occupied lands on one side against the Thalmor on the other.

Possible New Races

• Maormer: The Sea Elves have recently appeared in TESO, and if the game follows the Thalmor Plotline, there's a chance they'll make another appearance. If they do, they are candidates to be promoted to playable.
• Khajit Sub Races: In the lore Khajit have multiple subraces with different attributes and appearances, based primarily of the cycle of moons. However, unless Khajit receive primary focus they are unlikely to add more than 1 type of khajit.
• Lilmothiit: These are a Fox-like beast race native to Black Marsh. The Major problem is that they are also likely extinct, having been decimated at the least by the Knahaten Flu. Including small groups is possible but unlikely.
• Tsaesci: Of the Akavir Races, the Tsaesci are the best known (NOTE: This isn't saying much). They have attempted a few invasions of Tamriel, so there is a history there. There is potential for neat abilities if they go with the Vampiric Snake version at least (And they likely would, given how much more interesting that is than more humans). However these guys are unlikely, unless Akavir gets a focus.
• Giant (Or Half-Giant): Personal Bias. I like the giants of skyrim, and think that they'd be a cool race to have. However, they are also slightly gigantic which puts limits on level design, which nobody wants. Since they are known to take human wives (often via kidnapping) maybe we could see some half-giants, which would be a tall (But not excessively so) and muscular race of pale horn headed humans.

Potential Expansions

• The Serpent's Veil: Venture to the Island nation of Pyandonea, home of the mysterious Maormer and fight a ruthless Sload Warmonger who seeks to conquer the isles.
  • Build Warships (Like Hearthfire Homes) and participate in naval battles
  • Travel to the Maormer nation of Pyandonea and the Coral Kingdom of the Sload
  • Play as a Maormer (Because why waste the customize system on the NPCs)
  • Fight the Sload and monsters of the deep
• Shadows of Akavir: A Tsaesci Cult threatens Tamriel with

Potential Expansions

• The Serpent's Veil: Venture to the Island Nation of Pyandonea, inhabitited by the mysterious Maormer elves and fight a merciless Sload warmonger who seeks control of Pyandonea.
  • Build warships Hearthfire style and captain them into battle
  • Travel to the Maormer nation Pyandonea and the Sload's Coral Kingdom of Thras
  • Play as a Maormer and utilize magic of the seas
  • Fight new enemies such as Sload Warlords and legendary creatures of the deep

• Shadows of Akavir: A Serpent Cult from a forgotten war attempts to re-establish a foothold in tamriel. Using the technologies of forgotten races, it's up to you to kill the serpent before it strikes
  • Use Ancient and powerful Akaviri and Dwemer artifacts to fight the Tsaesci Cult (This includes a dwemer Mini-Mecha)
  • Delve into ruins of a age long since past and fight unique Dwemer automatons and Tsaesci Warriors
  • Get Sidetracked By The Golden Saucer, a lot with little things to do on the side that probably take precedence over actually stopping the cult

The Thalmor have struck a deal with Jyggalag.

In Oblivion, conversations between random NPCs sometimes include rumors that Daedra worship is becoming a more common problem on the Summerset Isles. Then, in the Shivering Isles expansion, the Hero of Kvatch frees Jyggalag, allowing him to once again roam the realms of Oblivion. The Thalmor seem like the kind of group that would resort to Daedric powers to increase the influence of the resurrected Aldmeri Dominion, and an increase in Daedra-worship in their home province would give them access to their pick of Daedric Princes. Jyggalag, being the Daedric Prince of Order, definitely meshes with the ideals of the Aldmeri Dominion, especially the Thalmor. Perhaps his influence is what gave the Dominion the strength to nearly conquer the Empire. In addition to all this, Jyggalag has had to spend time recovering and regaining his original power. In the main quest in Oblivion, Martin Septim informs you that Daedra and their artifacts regenerate with time, and that even if they are completely destroyed, they can be fully restored in a century or two. The events of the Shivering Isles expansion took place about 200 years ago, giving Jyggalag around 170 years to gather his strength before the Dominion began to conquer Tamriel.

The Khajiit didn't really fall for the Thalmor's crap

They are in the process of The Infiltration and are going to betray the Thalmor, and take Tamriel from under their noses.

The Elder Scrolls 6 will concern the return of the Dwemer and be set in Hammerfell

or at least they'll get more in-depth about what really happened to the Deep-Folk. There's a video on youtube that talks about speculation on it and mentions how an NPC in Skyrim makes reference to seeing a Dwarf in Oblivion. This could mean they didn't unmake themselves as is commonly suggested, but just went into hiding. This would also give a good reason to make a main game set in Hammerfell (seeing as Redguard isn't a main-game but a spinoff) , as there were a lot of Dwemer ruins lying around there. Also it would be pretty cool to get to see the introduction of the sword-singing ability the Shehai and Ansei are capable of, and maybe the Dwarves could be posing a threat the same way the dragons did. Basically the Dwarves could have some sort of Mecha-Mooks that could serve as bosses, kinda like suped up Dwarven Centurions or Spheres. Also it would be interesting to see Hammerfell from a sandbox RPG and get to experience various Hammerfell equivalents of factions like the Fighter's Guild and the Mage's Guild.

• The game could take place a short time after Skyrim or at the same time, similar to the Time Skip between Oblivion and Morrowind. This way it would be possible to avoid having to deal with solution to the Civil War or the inevitable second Great War.
• This could also take care of why dragons wouldn't show up in Hammerfell if Bethesda was inclined to keep them out of TES 6.
• If Bethesda wanted to go down a similar path as Skyrim, what with them making the PC a legendary figure like the Dragonborn or Nerevarine they could do that with the Hoon'Ding.
• It could also be a good chance to explore the Yokudan pantheon a bit more than they already.
• The fighter's guild could take the form of the Alik'r warriors or something of a similar nature.
  • It would also be nice to see a setting that's different from the last two games which were more or less set in Fantasy Counterpart Culture equivalents of European settings, so Hammerfell would be a departure in setting and theme.

M'Aiq The Liar is Lorkhan

Lorkhan, the infamous trickster god is present in varying forms throughout every religion in Tamriel, and we were shown physical evidence of his existence in Morrowind through The Heart of Lorkhan.

In the lore, it is said that after tricking (or convincing) the et'Ada to create Mundus, he was either punished or willfully submitted to being "Killed" or otherwise removed from his "divine center" and whatever was left of him was "exiled to wander through creation."

And what seemingly immortal character do we know with a penchant for verbal tricks, wandering and showing up during important events?

During ESO, he can even show up in Coldharbour.

Nirn will be absolutely wrecked.

Obviously the lore conflict issues from Skyrim will be resolved by just blowing up the place. Everyone will move to the moons like the dunmer and khajit with C0DA.

Elder Scrolls 6 Will Be About Saving The Nature of Time Itself

It's fairly well established that the upper echelons of the Aldemeri Dominion are motivated to destroy the "pillars" or "anchors" that ground reality, with the dragonfires, heart of lorkhan and several others being already destroyed. They think this will allow them to re-merge with Aetherius to attain their natural state of immortality.

In the next game, the effects of this campaign will be felt through increasingly more common Dragon Breaks of various degrees and types. Abominations from all times and planes will flood into Nirn, and will be up to the Champion of Akatosh to set things straight by using their unique ability to harness the dragon breaks in order to rally an army of history's greatest heroes.

Throughout the main quest, you'll rally the support of various incarnations of the Agent, Eternal Champion, Nerevarine and/or original Nerevar, Champion of Cyrodiil and the Dragonborn alongside ancient heroes like Ysgramor, St. Alexia, Gaiden Shinji and more in order to put an end to the Thalmor Dominion and permanently repair the fabric of reality itself.

The Dragonborn will live for several hundred years regardless of race

Miraak, the very first Dragonborn, hails all the way from the time of the Dragon's domination of Mortals. In that time, it is likely he absorbed many, many dragon souls, and these souls had a restorative effect on him. This is also seen during his fight in the end of Dragonborn, where by absorbing the souls of several dragons, he restores his health and keeps fighting. When you take this logic and apply it to the Last Dragonborn, who has likely absorbed dozens if not hundreds of souls during his time in Skyrim, it's likely that this same effect will keep him alive through the end of the 4th Era and likely through the 5th Era.

The Elder Scrolls VI will take place in...Yokuda.

Just to truly mess with everyone's expectations, Bethesda will set the next game in a continent that according to all sources doesn't exist anymore. It's about fifty or so years after the events of Skyrim, and the Second Great War is in full swing between the Empire and the Dominion. Both sides are looking for any advantage it can get over the other, so Yokuda's recent re-discovery has resulted in both factions gunning for it to see if there's anything that ancient Yokudans had that could turn the tide of the war. The Redguards will obviously be opposing them, but they'll have unexpected allies in the Bretons, the Nords, the Dunmer, and the Orsimer, who want the secrets to Yokuda's magics, to stick it to the Thalmor, leverage to broker for a land of their own, and actually just want to help the Redguards out, respectively.

Unfortunately, the reason for Yokuda's disappearance, and its return, is not given much thought, and it's up to the Hero, imprisoned by the Redguards under suspicion of being an Imperial/Thalmor spy, to discover the truth before it's too late.

• There are actual multiple sources (a map briefly glimpsed in the intro of Redguard, a "Yoku" cultural group related to but looked down on by the Redguards in Redguard, ambient dialogue in Anvil in Oblivion mentioning Yokuda as a destination) indicating that Yokuda still exists — just, by the aforementioned map, reduced to an island chain of fairly small islands from what was by all accounts an entire continent of its own.

Origin of the Elder Scrolls.

In the beginning there was the Void, and the Void sought to know itself. To aid in this venture, it created Anu and Padomay, the primordial "Is" and "Is Not." The intersection between these two created the Aurbis, the "Grey Maybe," which also wanted to know itself. And so it created the Aetherius and Oblivion, the primordial "Possible" and "Impossible." The intersection between these two (with help from the et'Ada) is what created the Mundus. The Mundus, in keeping with the pattern, also sought to know itself, and so it with the help of the mortals who live there separated its facets into the "Potential" and the "Actual."

And at the intersection of "Is Possible, Potentially" and "Is Not Impossible, Actually", you get the Elder Scrolls.

Peryite will play a major role in Elder Scrolls VI

Skyrim hints at Peryite working on a plague that may devastate all of Tamriel; this could be forshadowing to a major event in the next game. While I'm not saying he'll necessarily be the big bad, it seems likely to me that Peryite's plague may be the basis for a major secondary plotline in VI.

• Building on this, if the next game is set in Hammerfell, the plot could be triggered by the sudden reappearance of The Crimson Ship, the Kothringi and the Khanaten Flu. The Crimson Ship was a plague ship carrying the last of the Kothringi in an attempt to escape the flu. The last place they tried to call in at was Yokuda, original home of the Redguards. They were refused and sailed west never to be seen again, an act the Redguards hold as a stain on their history. The vengeful spirits of the Kothringi return to Hammerfell on the Crimson Ship, bringin with them the Khanaten Flu. And who was behind their return? Peryite!

Talos is the result of a gambit to recreate Lorkhan

This goes by the theory that Talos is the culmination of the merging of Tiber Septim, Wulfharth Ash-King, and Zurin Arctus into one "enantiomorphic Oversoul" and by the assumption that, of the three, at least one of them was a Shezarrine (a mortal incarnation of Shezarr/Shor/Lorkhan/etc.) and at least one of them was a Dragonborn (a being with a soul of a dragon, which is a fragment of an Aedra, Akatosh). Normally, Shezarrines are just individuals who become great heroes and may have some traits that can be considered divine or supernatural, but are not divine themselves. Dragonborn individuals similarly have extraordinary abilities, but are also not divine beings. Lorkhan, prior to his death (or maybe even while he was dead) decided to mess around with this, and set up the circumstances that would lead to the apotheosis of a being that was the result of three powerful souls merging, at least one of which was that of a mortal incarnation of his, and at least one of which was an Aedric soul. Because Talos is the apotheosis of a Dragonborn, he counts as an Aedra (hence, how he became the Ninth Divine). And since in life he was a mortal incarnation of Lorkhan, than it technically means that now he's a divine incarnation of Lorkhan. The Thalmor know, or at least suspect this, which gives them even more reason to hate Talos, since he is the new form of the God that the elves hate the most. Their attempts to destroy Talos and mortality are, in their view, a way for them to finally permakill Lorkhan as punishment for his trickery, and allow the elves to become like the et'Ada.

The Dwemer Almost Achieved CHIM

Unlike Vivec, they went into Zero Sum, completely erasing themselves from reality.

All games after Daggerfall are exaggerated for Gameplay and Story Segregation Reasons, meaning that Daggerfall and Arena are the only games that represent Tamriel at it's true size

It's quite obvious that while Skyrim, Oblivion, and Morrowind are the most detailed worlds in the franchise, they don't represent Tamriel at it's full size, meaning Daggerfall and Arena are the only games that represent Tamriel as it truly is, with millions (literally) of NPCs and provinces that take up thousands of square miles. Canonically, cities like Whiterun should have a population of 500,000 people, just as the city of Daggerfall has thousands of real - time NPCs.

The "glitches" in the Elder Scrolls games are actually a result on reality frequently going out for lunch in the setting.

A lot of the background material establishes that Nirn and the surrounding universe is not the most stable location in terms of reality. In a place where something as simple as a badly-timed ritual can rend the laws of physics into tiny pieces and plunge the world into 1008 years of weirdness, then its not unusual for your world to occasionally show a bit of a hiccup in the laws of physics. Giants launching people into the sky with a single swing of their club? Sure. Dead bodies flailing and vibrating as they phase through the walls? Why not? Shopkeepers being completely deprived of their senses yet not being aware of this fact when you so much as put a bucket over their head? Just another day in paradise. When Todd Howard said "It's not a bug, its a feature," he wasn't kidding.

When gameplay of TES 6 is finally shown... we'll be right back at the carriage!

It'll be a Trolling Creator moment where they know all about the meme before finally showing the actual game and story.

TES 6 will have Akatosh and/or Talos calling out the Thalmor.

Akatosh because he's also the elven god Auriel, and Talos for much more obvious reasons.

Shadowmere is one of Sithis and the Night Mothers children

He/She is clearly a supernatural creature, what with their glowing red eyes, and the fact they rose out of a boiling black pool, the fact that Skyrim!Shadowmere is implied to be the same horse as Oblivion!Shadowmere, would also imply either immortality or at least that Shadowmere is undead, being the child of godlike beings, perhaps when the Night Mother murdered her children to gain approval of Sithis it didn't stick, or it did but being with the Night Mother and Sithis being the embodiments of the Dark Brotherhood can easily raise the dead, it would fit in the psuedo myths most of the franchise lore is based on, where the children of mythic beings were not always human shaped (For instance, Loki is the mother of Odins 8 legged horse)

Jagar Tharn was working with Eidolon from Hexen II

There are three enemies that appear in both The Elder Scrolls: Arena and Hexen II (the only two games in the entire ZeniMax library where these creatures appeared): the Medusa, the Iron Golem, and the Stone Golem. Eidolon is said to have invaded the world of Thyrion and an army of golems (magical constructs made of different elements, which include the aforementioned two) was instrumental in conquering the different lands, while the Medusa (a half-woman, half-snake creature) is native to the Septimus region of Thyrion.

It's possible that Jagar Tharn and Eidolon reached out to each other across dimensions with their magic, and supplied each other with fresh troops for their conquests: Tharn provided Eidolon with the golems that he used to conquer Thyrion while Eidolon provided Tharn with armies of creatures from the various worlds he and the other Serpent Riders conquered over the years (which would include Thyrion and its Medusas) so that they could cause as much chaos in Tamriel as possible, which would explain why many of them (such as the Lizard Men, Hell Hounds, Fire Daemons, and some other creatures) never returned after Arena.

The Dwemer are still somewhere on Nirn

They were just teleported away to some uncharted land mass on the other side of the planet. They just haven't been seen since because they have no reason or desire to return, at least for now.

Jagar Tharn was trying to invoke the recurring King/Rebel/Observer story with himself in all three roles

This is why he seemed to be actively scheming to increase the chaos in Tamriel despite ruling it — he was attempting to set up a situation where as Uriel VII he would be the King that needs to be deposed so that as Jagar Tharn he could step in as the Rebel and become the new King, with his guises allowing him to observe it all from multiple angles and push towards the Rebel outcome (or to put it in less metaphysical terms, he wanted to rule openly as a Tharn, which meant he neeeded to make certain that people would back him deposing the Septim dynasty).

Sotha Sil was right about the nature of the Aurbis, but not about the "gaps" being the Daedra.

This one's pretty lore-heavy so bear with me:

Although it's never confirmed what the Clockwork City was meant to do, the Clockwork Apostles believe it was supposed to "fix" the Aurbis (reality) by remaking it without the "mistakes" introduced by its turbulent creation. Sotha Sil allegedly believed the mistakes or gaps to be the Daedra, and that remaking the Aurbis would remove them forever.

But what if he was wrong? What if the Daedra are a true part of the Aurbis? That would make the "gaps" something else entirely...

In a future game, these gaps reveal themselves as Eldritch Abominations completely unlike anything we've seen in TES before. They are the things that were never meant to be, the things that should never be. They warp reality just by existing and are a threat to Mortals and Daedra alike.

But hold on, you say, why would these things only show up now? Thousands of years since Nirn was created? Simple - look at everything that's changed since the series began:

Numidium and the Mantella, destroyed. The Heart of Lorkhan, gone. The Amulet of Kings, destroyed. The Crystal Tower (and the Heart of Transparent Law), destroyed. Worship of Talos suppressed across the Empire. The Mechanical Heart of Lorkhan, destroyed, and according to one of the endings of Legends - Return to Clockwork City, the Clockwork City shut down for good.

Basically, the Cosmic Keystones of Nirn are all slowly dwindling, and the walls of reality have never been weaker. This is a prime opportunity for the "gaps" to manifest in Nirn, and a future TES game would involve the PC finding a way to put these things back where they came from.

Whatever the Dwemer did to make themselves disappear, it also made it impossible to discover what happened to them.

To date, no-one in all of Tamriel has found even the slightest clue as to what happened to the Dwemer; even though their cities are still in perfect working order, there is no record anywhere of what they were trying to accomplish with the Heart of Lorkhan.

In Morrowind, there are two books written in Dwemeri: Divine Metaphysics and The Egg of Time. When translated into English characters, the books are complete gibberish. The Out-Of-Universe explanation is that the creators couldn't be bothered to construct a new conlang for the sake of a few pages, but what if the In-Universe explanation is that the Dwemer made it impossible for anyone to discover the truth?

The Egg of Time in particular seems like a warning against tampering with the heart. It and other tomes like it could blow the secret of the Dwemer wide open. But when someone tries to read them, much like with an Elder Scroll, all they see is complete nonsense.

Whether by accident or design, the Dwemer ensured that no-one would ever know what happened to them.

The Septim Dynasty isn't actually extinct.

So, in Oblivion, Martin Septim references his time as a cultist of Sanguine. Sanguine is the god of, among other things, sex. It's entirely possible that while he was a Sanguine worshipper, Martin fathered a child that he didn't know about. If this is true, then the last member(s) of the Septim bloodline could still, as of Elder Scrolls VI, be under the control of Sanguine.

Also, the idea that Sanguine, the party god, might join the ranks of Molag Bal, Mehrunes Dagon, Jyggalag, Hermaeus Mora, Hircine, etc. as the main bad guy of an Elder Scrolls game or DLC, is hilarious.

Solving the Disappearance of the Dwemer the Dwemer way

We're never going to get a positive answer about what happened to the Dwemer, so let's make like the Dwemer themselves by gathering all the theories and then refuting them until only the most plausible remain.

• Theory 1: Everybody's Dead, Dave- the simplest answer, and the one the Morrowind Mage's Guild questline comes up with. Whatever the Dwemer wanted to do with the Heart of Lorkhan, they failed and got themselves fried. They are currently purely and utterly dead, no buts about it.
  • Refutation: Apparently, Vivec can't sense them on any afterlife planes either.
• Theory 2: Zero-Sum- the weird lore metaphysics answer. Kagrenac was trying to mass-produce CHIM for his species, but something (perhaps related to the Dwemer's skepticism-based worldview) went wrong and the lot of them blinked out of reality.
  • Refutation: Zero-Sum involves fading from reality so completely it's like you never existed in the first place. The Dwemer left a lot of evidence of their existence behind, including remains in the form of piles of ash.
• Theory 3: Anumidium is People- Kagrenac may have failed to inform the other Dwemer (or failed to realize himself) that the process of creating an artificial god might require some special components... like, say, their entire race. The Dwemer were transmuted into some essential component for the Numidium, and are now wherever the Numidium's bits are.
  • Refutation: If that was the case, then presumably the Dwemer would be still on Nirn, since the Numidium is.
    • Refuting the Refutation: Perhaps Vivec can't sense them because they've transformed themselves to the point where they're completely unrecognizable.
• Theory 4: Wow, It Actually Worked: Whatever Kagrenac wanted to do with the Heart, utterly vanishing from known reality was an intentional part of the process, and it worked exactly as intended. The Dwemer are now chilling in some unknown plane of existence as something god-esque.
  • Refutation: Then where the hell did they go and why is there no evidence anywhere of said higher plane's existence?
• Theory 5: No Ontological Inertia- mentioned in a book in Morrowind, where the author states that Kagrenac had already been using the Heart to make the Dwemer immortal. Then Dagoth Ur came and started poking around, either accidentally or purposefully severing the connection to the Heart that made the immortality enchantment work, resulting in the Dwemer instantly aging to dust.
  • Refutation: You'd think Yagrum Bagarn would've noticed if his race had all stopped aging long enough for No Ontological Inertia side-effects to kick in.
• Theory 6: All of the Above: They did what the hero of Daggerfall did and triggered a Dragon Break, centered around themselves. Kagrenac did every possible thing he could've done with the Heart, all at once.

Saving and Loading is Real

Based on a guess in the Skyrim page, which says that either the Greybeards or the Dragonborn themselves use the Slen Tiid Vo shout (the one Alduin uses to resurrect dragons, roughly translating to 'flesh time undo') whenever the Dragonborn happens to die. Here, I'm going to expand it to the rest of the games.

• Online: During the main quest, it's canon that the Vestige revives because their soul is stuck in Coldharbor. After that, though, either Meridia likes them enough to keep reviving them, or they retain a lingering connection to Coldharbor that keeps them alive.
• Arena: No idea about this one. Early-Installment Weirdness did it?
• Daggerfall: The Warp in the West didn't just affect the endings, it made it so that the Agent retroactively succeeded in every way there was to succeed and failed in every way there was to fail, all at once. When you reload a save, you're going from viewing a 'failure' possibility to seeing aa 'success' possibility. The nascent Dragon Break is also why the game is so glitchy.
• Morrowind: Azura is tired of all the Neverarine failures, so this time she's giving her champion a special treat in the form of prophetic visions of timelines in which they failed, so when they actually do the thing, they get it right the first time. Every time you reload a save, you're returning to the point where you experienced the vision.
• Oblivion: Retrocausal effect of the PC's ascension as Sheogorath.
• Skyrim: As said above, Slen Tiid Vo.