Every Elder Scrolls so far has jumped forward in time. 5 years from Arena to Daggerfall, 22 years between Daggerfall and Morrowind, 6 years between Morrowind and Oblivion and the biggest by far is the 200 year jump from Oblivion to Skyrim. So how far forward would you like to see Elder Scrolls go? Would you like to see the world advance in technology, politics and society the farther they go?
I always thought it would be interesting to see how people view magic as technology progresses. In Tamriel's Industrial Revolution, would magic be anywhere near as important as it was during the events of Skyrim?
In fact, I wouldn't be opposed to it going on into the advent of firearms, perhaps even into their advancement into smokeless powder (with their own version of WWI), as long as it was done right (so no muzzle-loaders that take five seconds to load).
I was thinking of a plotline for ES6. What if ancient dwemer drills tunnel to the surface and the automatons start attacking cities/the dwemer are back. Or maybe dwemer cannons? They would have to be extremely heavy and expensive, not to mention hard to reload, but that would sort add some new depth to the game.
I think as long as its somewhat of a progression and the timeline doesn't leap too far forward in a single bound, then I can get behind it. What that year threshold is exactly, I'm not sure. 200 years is believable, but what about 500? 1000? I might struggle with those kinds of leaps.
I had a similar idea, although it was in the form of a discussion about what direction the different nations of Tamriel would take depending on which side won. I imagined that whichever side won would likely either ban the other or place strict limitations on it.
I also pondered how the dragons would fare (pretending that they aren't going to be hunted into extinction by the Dragonborn in the lore between ESV and VI) as both technology and magic evolved to close the gap between their power and the powers of mortals.
And there should be a reason for technology not changing much if they don't make huge leaps in that regard to match the time. The 200 year jump resulting in current Skyrim weapons/armor technology is believable (pretending that Oblivion didn't have Gothic plate armor) if we take Martin Septim as a Jesus metaphor, which would place Skyrim at 200 AD.
I think it should only go to a steampunk-like setting at most. But it should happen in small jumps. Maybe go to Final Fantasy IX like world, mostly medieval but with some technology, and slowly go full steampunk. But it should take its time. Though i can live nice without technological advancement in ES.
I doubt the Dwemer will ever come back, the race was created to be mysterious and unknowable so having them return kind of renders them pointless. The only way I could see it work is if it's not the actual Dwemer but instead a massive mechanical army that had been set on a timer somewhere appears from underground.
My feeling is that ES6 will be set only a few years after Skyrim as I believe the plot centering around the Thalmor was not concluded and was left open for a sequel.
As for ES7 - this may well be set centuries later and I think Bethesda would want to do something different perhaps introduce steampunk technology as others have said. I wouldn't want it to go too far though as it would loose the classic elder scrolls feel but if they introduced something to make it believable that Tamriel is evolving rather than stagnating it would make a change. I don't think guns would fit in though.
Though I'm not really fond of the jumps of centuries or millennia(especially jumps back in the case of ESO), I really don't mind if TES goes far into the future. I'd just like there to be a traceable overarching narrative. A more condensed one is probably more preferable to me, but I'd honestly be really interested to see what 9E actually looks like.