Sory for the rant/long post!!

I will speak of my personal opinion and what Talos represents and wants to be a god of.. maybe... and most of it is based on what we see he represents through the book The Ten Commands of the Divine whichs says for Talos: 

5. Talos says: Be strong for war. Be bold against enemies and evil, and defend the people of Tamriel.

For starters my view of the person Hjalti is that he is the casual ambitious and greedy guy (maybe a bit too much on both) that is hungry for power which I don't consider good or bad it's just in the nature of some people to have this desire so what can you do. Also he managed to achieve everything he wanted so I do think he was highly capable in taking advantage of every opportunity he got.

From this starting point when he was Hjalti up to the point he became Talos I believe that he was driven from his desire to create something and be the creator and ruler of this thing.

In the end after all the things he did good or bad it doens't matter he managed in the end to create what he wanted conquering Tamriel becoming its ruler and also in the end becoming a god.

So his starting point to do all that was of course not just his love for his fellow men but mostly his desire to lead and gain power. Mind this is my opinion  but having read a bit of history during my years in uni 9 out of 10 that was the case for most people who went on such wars / campaigns, personal ambition, greed etc. That is my opinion on Hjalti.

Now, comming onto the point of him becoming Talos and his "abssence" compared to other gods. Maybe there are certain restrictions due to his nature/power/sphere of influense and he can't act the way he wants I think it is implied by the lore that Aedra also have restrictions on how much they can mess with the world not sure though been too long since I last read lore regarding these matters, remember the guy that was bringing luck everywhere he went and then the gods went to take him away from his wife and he became wolf etc don't remember the book's name... I can also think the possibility that after he ascended the desire for power he had before his apotheosis has remained in his nature and he just tries to gather more power or something and can't be bothered with the mortal world up until the point we 've seen ES progress at least. Still not sure on that one since belief = power if people stop to believe in him it's highly likely for him to get very weak or even dissapear. 

On the matter of his Command now and what he represents well I just take this command as the cool and strong statement for the hero god of mankind who united Tamriel. The last part I think is there to make the other races / nations of the Empire to feel that Talos and maybe his people who represent his empire love and protect everyone in this empire it could also be there so that the conquered races will feel closer with each other not that they will but it's just there to send the message. <3 :D I mean defend the people of Tamriel, who has to do that? Under what circumstances? Say that only Skyrim is left worshiping Talos do they need as his believers go around and defend every nation/country in Tamriel?

Moving on I think that his worship if we take him as the god of just ruleship and civil society can be followed easily by the Imperials, Bretons and.. well.. for Nords that might not be the case from the people's sayings and behaviour in game they admire Talos mostly for his achievements in founding the empire which means they admire mostly his achievements in his conquest, battles and heroics and let's be honest Nordic society is not as civil as the other societies due to their warrior like traditions. Now, go to Summerset Isles and I 'm not talking about people who support Thalmor just go and find a neutral civilized scholar and tell him Hey Talos is the god of just ruleship and Civil Society yeah, the civil society Altmer always had or at least strived to achieve nad if I 'm not mistaken it is aknowledged that Imperials took and used many things from the elves in their societis. I won't even talk about Dark elves/Bosmer/Argonians/Khajiit and in regards to Redguards I 'm not sure if they would worship Talos I don't know much about the race I have just started recently looking into them.

So, yeah from what I see Talos does have his elements and maybe there lies indeed his sphere of influence upon which his worship is based but how many will really worship him for these things? I think Imperials adapt easily and their worship for him might have waned a bit and just think of him more as a Hero and less as a god of all these, Bretons (who I think will just wait and see and if it is not beneficial they won't include him in their pantheon most likely) last is Skyrim that does have strong worship for Talos still but they worship him mostly as a god for Heros and Battle and much less for just ruleship and civil society. 

In my view the only ones that worship Talos as a god still are the people of Skyrim but they lean mostly on his Hero, Battle side and the Imperials but after 25 years the new generation of Imperials might have weaker faith on him but still think of him as a Hero god that founded the empire but wouldn't go bongers like the Nords. Bretons will just stay and watch and I don't think they have any strong feelings of worship to him then there are the Redguards for which I don't know and the other races are either enemies or just worship deadra etc.

Lastly on the topic of Talos representing unity, equallity and such, hm that sounds a bit stretched because I think he represented these under the vision of his Empire and in order to rule everyone but if there is no Empire to worship him for that where does his faith and spheres of influense go? And from what I see the faith on Talos is not as wide or strong as it used to be.

This is just my opinion / observations for the sake of this discussion I support none apart from my main Skyrim character who tries to find a way to Immortality and he is much more charming than Talos! :D </3

Depends if they were raised in Cyrodiil under strong Imperial influense it's possible to worship Talos to some extent. I mean they would just hear Talos conquered the elves. The elf that just hear this wouldn't pay much attention to the elves vs talos thing because they didn't go through that experiense they would just pass it as history something that happened and didn't affect them I think.

And to be honest there is no bad or good side here Talos vs the rest of tamriel or men vs elves or anything like that. It is just a cycle of wars between people driven by their desire and greed to gain power and maybe for survival. It's just a few "clever idiots" or opportunists who will drag whole nations/countries/people to war and demise in order to achieve the plans in their personal agenda this applies to Talos, the Thalmor, Tribunal maybe, Bretons/Redguards vs Orcs, that is a bit more complicated though, Ulfric can also be such an example I think and other similar occasions.

I was gonna say that the temple mentioned in The Real Barenziah was more likely the cult of the All-Maker, since that is A) a monotheistic religion B) practiced by Nords who C) are very traditionalist and would care more about more ancient traditions. But then I did some research; there ARE some other possible candidates for that temple (it being the Temple of the One, I am going to assume it's monotheistic): there's the Alessian order (founded by the Imga and popularized mainly in Valenwood and Cyrodiil, unlikely since we are told the cult is Nord), and the Cult of Emperor Zero (created by Tiber Septim himself, so there is a high chance that HE was bullshitting Barenziah and everyone else and indeed using it as a jumping-off point to his own divinity); the latter, combined with the worship of the All-Maker, is probably the most likely (unless someone else has any bright idea).

EDIT: I got so much into that detail that I forgot to address the general point. You claim, in short, that the Imperials seem to see Talos as a god, and that their societal norms ask that he and any other deities be worshipped in private, while the Nords think of him as more of a superhero to be revered publicly. Well, then Skyrim's civil war doesn't make a lot of sense; the Empire would have had to give up a god freely; a god that, mind you, they still believe in; politics and war aside, there would be loads of rebellions in Cyrodiil. Meanwhile, Skyrim wouldn't have had a reason to rebel; this only makes sense if you say the Nords are pigheaded idiots who care more about holding the teddy bear than about how crappy the teddy bear really is, and that the Aldmer banned Talos specifically to weaken the Empire.

Which are both kind of canon, so yeah, point taken.

I wasn't saying that Tiber Septim said Emperor Zero was an ancient thing and everyone believed him, I was saying that when a Legion contubernium armed with swords and fire and arrows tells you that something has existed for a long time, you nod and let them install the security cameras with Tiber Septim's face on them.

As for the All-Maker's worship, we don't have that much info on the history of the Skaal; it is possible that they, and therefore their religion, were once a major faction among the Nords, making it being the religion referenced in The Real Barenziah much more likely. But hey, that's just a theory. A RELIGIOUS THEORY. Thanks for reading.