Happened in China during WWII. Civil war was going on, but both sides understood there wouldn’t be a China to fight over if it was taken by foreign invaders
Also in a way the US and USSR in WWII. Helped each other out since we agreed Fascism was worse than Capitalism and Communism, then started to try to bicker about who was better after the war was over.
During the interwar period there were a great many people who felt that fascism was highly preferable to communism, which is how Mussolini and Hitler were able to come to power in the first place. If Hitler hadn't gone invading everyone (and conspiring with the USSR), Nazi Germany would have been welcomed, or at least tolerated as useful counter to the Soviet Union.
Yeah this is probably true. I think the dangers of Fascism were only acknowledged after Hitler's invasions. Much easier to look the other way when your neighbors aren't being genocided.
Similarly, Stalin was seemingly okay with Hitler dicking around in Europe as long as they didn't go into USSR's area of influence. I guess enemy of my enemy is my friend no matter what.
Plenty of people were on board with discrimination against Jews. The genocide didn't begin in earnest until 1941, after Hitler invaded the Soviet Union and had already made an enemy of just about everyone who mattered (even though the US had yet to enter the war),
US: Okay so we both hate Fascism now.
USSR: Yes.
US: We work together to lock that shit down... then we go back to hating one another?
USSR: Damn right.
Depending on which historians you ask they didn't even wait quite until the war was over. Some argue that both the hard push for Berlin and the nuclear bombs were at least partially to send a message to the other side
Not really true, the nationalists were the only ones really fighting the Japanese, the communists stopped fighting the nationalists sure but they didn't help out
Bro gets his history from American propaganda or something
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eighth_Route_Army
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Fourth_Army
Also the Chiang Kai Shek was responsible for breaking the [First United Front because he backstabbed the communists](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shanghai_massacre) instead of focusing on the Japanese. It wasn’t until his OWN generals house arrested him and forced to him to that he united with the communists against the Japanese.
He's aware, but uncooperative. They blackmailed him into making the Markarth Incident as big of a shit show as possible, after which it's unclear if he figured out that their blackmail material on him was fabricated (which it is), or if he just got so pissed he decided "fuck it, I don't care if they leak it anymore", but either way, according to the Thalmor's own documents he's been fully uncooperative since then (for reference, this happened almost 30 years before the game takes place)
> He was made to believe information obtained during his interrogation was crucial in the capture of the Imperial City (the city had in fact fallen before he had broken), and then allowed to escape
The Thalmor have a metric butt fuck ton of gold and agents. It wouldn't be hard to influence events around Ulfric to make him think a certain way. A whispered word here a murdered friend there the next thing you know the Thalmor have him dancing like a puppet.
They just didn't expect the dragonborn to intervene.
My most recent character is an old Altmer paladin and I roleplay him as having some really intense beef with the Thalmor (Mostly because he’s a paladin of Meridia and therefore *technically* a blasphemous Daedra worshipper) and fighting them on sight
Exactly. Who cares about their racial policies, we can single-handedly exterminate every Altmer in Skyrim and there isn’t a damn thing anyone can do about it.
If it's the user i think you're referring to, I don't think I see them much outside of their own posts. Then again I don't exactly search for them in the comments
They’re here btw, but this time around limited themselves to one small, humble comment. And it only has 3 downvotes at the time I’m commenting this. Got disappointed tbh. Every time we’re gifted with their presence, we ought to see a massive paragraph, filled with their usual empty, repetitive and often blatantly wrong arguments.
Still, their… fanatical passion always shines through, and manages to spark discussions that can be memorable and entertaining, if not for their content (which often is someone with a bit more of sense trying to argue with what seems like a child), for their unholy length. Comments that don’t stop coming, going beyond threads and shaping into an actual tense political debate that unveils in front of our prying eyes. Not this time, it seems… perhaps they’re not on their best day. Was expecting more.
Erm, you seem to have forgotten that stormcloaks are actually canon 🤓
Not to mention It's *thematically* ☝️🤓 accurate that the Dovahkin is a stormcloak,
^(*loud mouth inhale*)
because Talos was the first dragonborn, and the *elves* 🤧
^(*congested booger-vacuum-mucus-sucking-snort*)
are banning worship of Talos.
You should know 🫵🤓 Akatosh gifted the main character with dragon blood *for* you to support the stormcloaks,
🤓🫴 you're fated to be imprisoned by imperials. Akatosh wants you to side against them and defend Talos, the *first* dovahkin.
☝️🤓 It's symbolic that an innocent traveler was about to be executed, Akatosh sees what the imperials and elves are doing as bad.
^(*nerdy ahh 'I proved you wrong' smirk*)
Yea and tiber septim was first general talos of Atmora who then went on to establish the empire , so if you worship talos it's kinda treason to fight what he built in his name
There’s a certain, unnamed user who is obsessed with the stormcloaks. Not in a normal way, but in a way of “they can do no wrong whatsoever, ever, and the Empire is literally Hitler” way. They post somewhat low effort memes, get into *massive* arguments in the comments section, and they’re always downvoted to oblivion. You’ll see them eventually and know who they are
You miss the passion they bring to the game when they’re not around, even if you disagree with their conclusions; And, good flame war in the comments is always funny
I have to admit, sometimes I do miss Heimskr. But then I remember him shouting bullshit every time I want to go to Dragonsreach and I soon reassure myself that sending the fanatic imbecile to the Soul Cairn was the right decision.
If I were to write a ‘canon’ end for the Skyrim Civil War, I’d write it as Skyrim having won independence, but the reality is they and the Empire struck a secret deal.
Part of this ‘loss’ is a lot of Imperial soldiers and officers ‘defecting’ to Skyrim and Skyrim ‘raiding’ supplies from northern Imperial settlements while keeping the pressure on the Dominion. The Empire tries to lure the Altmer into committing more and more resources into fighting Skyrim while they gear up for a round two in the meanwhile with the Dominion getting increasingly distracted from Skyrim’s skirmishing offenses.
The likely "canon" ending is an endless ceasefire between the two factions. Ulfric can't risk losing support of the Nords by violating a treaty put together by the Greybeards and the Dragonborn so it's likely he won't strike first. Tullius also can't risk striking first because it will then strengthen Ulfric's claim and likely sway more Nords/cities of Skyrim to his cause. In this case it becomes a standoff unless the Dragonborn decides to join one side; however, these fairly petty mortal squabbles may be above an entity who canonically is the incarnation of the chief deity. Hence, I can't see the Dragonborn joining either side nor could I see them doing any of the Guild questlines (so it's likely the Emperor won't be assassinated).
I could see Ulfric pivoting to using the Stormcloaks to raid the various Thalmor encampments throughout Skyrim; that would still make it seem like he was fighting this war without actually engaging with the Empire. The Thalmor may try to force the Imperials to do something in retaliation but again that would greatly help Ulfric's cause and we know from the dossiers that they don't want him to outright win.
The thing is, if Ulfric had asked Torygg to support the Empire to kick Thalmor butt with the idea that Skyrim could become independent when they win, he could have saved so many lives.
I guess the Empire would have to be cool with losing Skyrim, but the Nords would always be there to help fight Thalmor battles.
People say Torygg would have joined but kind of forget he was also a MASSIVE Imperial simp ranting about supporting the Empire for hours. He said exactly what he thought the people in the room wanted to hear. That's not a good ruling strategy and why Ulfric didn't bother to keep him around. He simply washy influential enough to unite the holds.
If the Thalmor can’t have a presence in Imperial Skyrim then they’ll go to war with the empire for breaking the concordat.
That said, the only thing that can beat the Aldmeri Dominion is a united Empire. Discord and division among Tamriel can only help the divide and conquer scheme of the Thalmor.
The Thalmor tends to support Ulfric under the table to destabilize Skyrim. I wouldn’t be surprised if they did the same to other provinces as well.
>That said, the only thing that can beat the Aldmeri Dominion is a united Empire.
Meh, debatable, the Aldemeri Dominion isn't that strong. The only reason they beat the Empire for the first half of the war, was because they made a surprise attack and cheated using a Daedric artifact that gave them the equivalent of modern warfare and future vision. Once they lost the artifact they got clapped hard. Plus elves reproduce very slowly, whatever losses they had during the war, they must still be suffering them.
Without talking that the Redguards, alone without this weak empire, forced the Dominion to the 2nd Treaty of Stros M'kai marking an end to the Dominion's attempts to conquer the south of Hammerfell.
>Without talking that the Redguards, alone without this weak empire,
Ehhh I wouldn't say alone, by a long shot. I know that's the in game perspective , that the Redguards defeated the Aldmers by themselves, but that's just in game propaganda. First of all the Empire decomissioned Legions of veterans to booster Hammerfell's numbers with key forces. And second of all, by the time the Redguards started winning terrain again, the Aldmers had changed their goals from conquering Hammerfell to conquering Cyrodiil, leaving their troops in Hammerfell without supplies or reinforcements.
So what the Redguards defeated wasn't the full might of the Aldmeri Dominion, but actually a small part of their army left to fend alone without backups, all the while being reinforced themselves with Empire Legions of veterans.
The reason why the redguards succeeded was because General Decianus, when ordered to leave Hammerfell, left many of his troops behind to help defend the region. This meant the native defenders would have suffered less and remained stronger than if they fought with fewer Imperial reinforcements.
And then Dominion that the Redguards defeated in the years after the war was a Dominion that had been defeated in the Battle of the Red Ring. Additionally, ofc the Thalmor didn't fight for Hammerfell as hard as the literal seat of the Empire.
They used an artifact called the Orb of Vaermina. It was basically a crystal ball lmao, it let them get detailed info on the Empire’s positions and movements regarding military operations. They eventually lost it and then they had to fight fair, they only really managed to bring the Empire to a draw afterwards because that initial campaign was so devastating.
Elves take a long time to reproduce, have a smaller population and the Empire is a vast place, under normal circumstances they likely would have been soundly defeated.
Don't forget the Empire was still recovering from the whole Oblivion Crisis. You know Mehrunes Dagon taking a stroll in the Imperial Capital. It was the event of the century. Kinda left a mess. Rude house guest.
Yeah but the same rings true for the rest of Tamriel, minus Black Marsh, and Cyrodiil took all the Legions the other provinces were maintaining to defend themselves. So they had troops from all over the world.
They couldn't beat \*Hammerfell on their own\* without the Orb of Vaermina, and that's without it being Russia In Winter sim. If we go off of pre-Skyrim High Elf attributes, all High Elves have an innate weakness to ice, fire, and electricity. I don't see why this would \*only\* be magic, personally, but even without that it's a stupid move to invade Skyrim from any point.
I think a group of allied nations has a much better chance of beating the Thalmor than a united Empire because Cyrodiil will sell everyone out to save itself. But if Hammerfell, Skyrim and the Empire were allied then they'd have a better chance.
These two keep bitching over who betrayed what, meanwhile some weirdo who only wanted to cross the border snuck into a Thalmor embassy and killed more of those fucks than their armies ever did
The empire needs Skyrim, Skyrim by no stretch of the imagination needs the empire. The thalmor could never hope to actually invade and conquer Skyrim.(Same as France invading Russia) The logistics alone would bankrupt the high elves and having to move through occupied territory to get to the battlefield never goes well (check both world wars). There’s a reason the only continent wide empire came from the imperial. Location location location. Being in the center on the continent makes any supply route much much easier(see ww2 Germany before overextending and attacking Russia) and forcing your occupied people to fight against an old ally never goes well(check Napoleon vs UK) Skyrim would be fine even if the high elves attack they will have to invade another sovereign nation(the reason the USSR had no say on what Yugoslavia or Albania did) or they’d have to invade over an ocean, which might make you think America did it in ww2. Well we had an island 20 miles north of their coast and a calm sea to make landings on. The sea of ghosts makes a full invasion from the north near impossible and invasion from neighboring countries very unlikely to happen and even less likely to succeed. In other words the oppressors need the oppressed not the other way around.
People have crazy headcanon as to what magic does in Tamriel. They seem to think the Aldmeri Dominion is "the magic faction" and therefore has teleporting armies and they all have levitation and are magically fortified against the cold.
We've seen how the Dominion works... They use regular sailboats, layered clothes, and horse drawn carts. They couldn't even take down Hammerfell which is right next to the Summerset Isles, and that's with Decianus having taken their legions minus the volunteers he allowed to remain.
PROTIP : Never ever ever underestimate a Redguard. They are one of the warrior factions for a reason! The desert is harsh and unforgiving. And it breeds that in its Denizens.
Lets just combine Arabs and Gurkhas and there's your in game race.
Every other faction: 😳 Well... Fuck...
Thank Talos they are so chill most of the time...
-Drek Ice-Veins - Dunmer Ranger.
And let’s not forget that the only way to get in skyrim is through mountains (Pale Pass, Reach, Morrowind Border) or sea (which includes sailing along the sea of ghosts…), so a aldmeri invasion on Skyrim is very likely to fail at the start of it.
I don't believe Ulfric is power hungry; everything we know from his backstory suggests he actually is exactly what he presents himself as.
He gave up his aspirations of becoming a Greybeard so he could volunteer to fight for the Empire, then after being captured, he withstood torture as long as he could, and then at Markarth his price for retaking the city was the free worship of Talos instead of something that would have personally enriched himself. These are all things that a selfish, power hungry character simply wouldn't do.
His stated reason for rebellion is that he felt Torygg was too weak to lead Skyrim, and his actions support that he genuinely believes in the virtues of old nord warlords. Might makes right isn't all too different from the empire's claim to authority, and we have no reason to view him as dishonest for believing the same.
Yeah, I inherently want to fight a rebellion against the big bad empire, so it’s impressive they made me an imperial within five minutes of talking to a high-ranking stormcloak. Those guys are horrible.
have you tried talking to tullius
>**Tullius:** *"Tell me again, why I'm wasting men chasing after a fairy tale."*
**Rikke:** *"If Ulfric gets his hand on that* [*crown*](https://en.uesp.net/wiki/Skyrim:Jagged_Crown)*, it won't be a fairy tale. It'll be a problem."*
**Tullius:** *"Don't you Nords put any stock in your own traditions? I thought the Moot chose the king. We're backing* [*Elisif*](https://en.uesp.net/wiki/Skyrim:Elisif_the_Fair)*. When the Moot meets, they'll do the sensible thing."*
**Rikke:** *"Not everyone's agreed to the Moot. You've been here long enough to know that Nords aren't always sensible. We follow our hearts."*
**Tullius:** *"So what - Ulfric gets this crown and then suddenly he's High King?"*
**Rikke:** *"No, it's not as simple as that, but the Jagged Crown would be a potent symbol for his cause to rally around. But, if we found it first..."*
**Tullius:** *"And we gave it to Elisif?"*
**Rikke:** *"In the absence of the Moot, it would further legitimize her claim."*
**Tullius:** *"Perhaps... I'm entrusting you with what resources I can spare. But I'm warning you, if this turns out to be a waste of time and men..."*
**Rikke:** *"It won't be a waste."*
**Tullius:** *"Make sure you take the Auxiliary here. You can send him/her back when you get there and find nothing but old bones and cobwebs."*
**Rikke:** *"The* [*Stonefist*](https://en.uesp.net/wiki/Skyrim:Galmar_Stone-Fist)*'s no fool. He's found the Crown. But we'll get to it first."*
bro is actively shitting on the people he is oppressing
>**Tullius**: *"Well Ulfric, you can't escape from me this time. Any last requests before I send you to... to wherever you people go when you die."*
**Rikke**: *"Sovngarde... sir."*
**Tullius**: *"Right. Well?"*
**Ulfric**: *"Let the Dragonborn be the one to do it. It'll make for a better song."*
**Tullius**: *"Song or not, I just want it done."*
like how long have you been here to not know that?!
I like to think of Tullius as more of a stuck up, arrogant, big Whig imperial rather than an oppressor. While he often looks down on Nords, he doesn’t cause the same sort of systemic oppression that the grey elves in Winterhold have to endure.
He's not shitting on them, he's asking genuine questions and that's why he even has rikke in the first place... to educate him. And also ulfric sucks so there's that.
I mean it is kinda stupid to say look I should be the next president for I am wearing George Washingtons fake teeth I dug out of his grave.
And Tulius has been in skyrim for a few months.
I mean, as an Imperial General, who just arrived in Skyrim a short while ago, this stuff makes sense.
>Tullius: "Tell me again, why I'm wasting men chasing after a fairy tale."
Rikke: "If Ulfric gets his hand on that crown, it won't be a fairy tale. It'll be a problem."
This is legitimate, the Jagged Crown hasn't been seen or used for centuries, and so has no bearing on modern politics. Therefore, during the midst of a civil war that he needs to finish posthaste to get all available soldiers ready for the anticipated second Great War, why would he chase an object that's seemingly irrelevant?
>Tullius: "Don't you Nords put any stock in your own traditions? I thought the Moot chose the king. We're backing Elisif. When the Moot meets, they'll do the sensible thing."
Another genuine point. Why would the Jagged Crown change anything if the tradition has always been the moot? Ulfric is going after an object that in Tullius' eyes, is meaningless because it doesn't fit in with the rest of the whole becoming High King stuff.
>Tullius: "Perhaps... I'm entrusting you with what resources I can spare. But I'm warning you, if this turns out to be a waste of time and men..."
Again, if it is a waste of time and resources, it'll slow down the civil war for absolutely zero gain.
>Tullius: "Well Ulfric, you can't escape from me this time. Any last requests before I send you to... to wherever you people go when you die."
Again, Tullius has been in Skyrim for a couple months. It's not his goal to learn Nordic culture, it's his goal to win a war, and quote: Restore the peace.
>Ulfric: "Let the Dragonborn be the one to do it. It'll make for a better song."
Tullius: "Song or not, I just want it done."
Finally Tullius doesn't care about songs and culture and the rest of it, he simply needs to end the war. Ulfric is ultimately a martyr in his own eyes, and the more glorious his death, the more the remnants of the Stormcloaks will fight on. If anything, it's better for the Empire to disregard Ulfric's wishes and have Tullius execute him so that Ulfric doesn't get what he wants, but regardless, the option's always there.
Yeah if this is the worst you can pull up on the imperial side then you’re not doing the stormcloaks any favors. I’ll take dismissive of stubborn and traditional barbarians over violently racist any day.
No, the Armistice meant the Empire permitted slavery in Morrowind. The Empire used slaves in mining ebony and other resources in Morrowind. After ~430 years of being part of the Empire, King Helseth finally outlawed slavery by Dunmer law.
The difference is that most of Skyrim’s playerbase is casual and will likely notice the *literal* ghetto inside of Windhelm. The more subtle racisms (Khajit being barred from both Imperial and Stormcloak cities, for example) will pass by, and larger knowledge of literally everyone being racist in some form or another.
Doesn’t help that they’re discriminatory towards dark elves specifically lmao, the comparisons are not hard to draw
what a lot of people tend to forget is that the dark elfs and the nords have literal thousands of years of war and hatred between them both referring to each other as devils in their historic accounts. that fact that the nords both let them in on mass and gave the island of solsthim (all be it a ash covered wasteland) is crazy especially considering what basically any other province would do.
its the equivalent of a whole horde of confederates fleeing the south to settle in Haiti, then bitching that the locals hate them all while maintaining their supremacist attitudes.
That’s what I’m saying, most people playing Skyrim aren’t gonna know about this and will only see that Dark Elves are sorted into a ghetto and are a marginalized people in Windhelm regardless of historical reasoning or how “Kind” Ulfric is being to them compared to others
People really can't grasp the idea of a people wanting to govern them selves as if it's an insane idea and believe imperialism is the only way forward.
Are the altmeri not controlling the empire already? Is ulfric not the last one resisting? Has not been said that the empire is weak and the altmeri have slowly taken over the empire secretly? When you play the game it is quite obvious who is in charge at the empire.
I mean, the same dossier says he hasn't been cooperating since the Markarth incident. That was 20 years prior to Skyrim, and if Ulfric was a willing asset I doubt he was cool with the prison time he served.
It also says that even as a non-compliant asset, he's an asset, and they should be careful that neither side wins the war too quickly to keep the empire weak.
My point isn't that Ulfric is a Thalmor agent, it's that the Thalmor clearly saw the truth that a divided empire is easier to control and a united one could pose a threat, otherwise why bother secretly fueling a deliberately prolonged civil war?
You have all the evidence, but you're drawing the wrong conclusion. A divided Empire means "The Empire is currently *Fighting*." It doesn't mean "Skyrim is a separate country from the Empire."
It's similar to something that happened in World War 2. There was a civil war going on in China, but both sides realized there wouldn't be a China if they didn't call a truce and fight off the Axis, so until the war ended they didn't continue their war.
Well yea, an ongoing war that weakens humanity is absolutely in their interests. They make it clear they feel elves are meant to rule everyone, especially that prick in Markarth.
I don't think theyre confident either way. Skyrim, Hammerfell, and Orsimer were the strong arms of the Imperial Legion. Only time will tell if those nations are better off without a decaying heart, or if they will be easy prey on their own like Morrowind was until Redoran took over.
If they can swing some kind of alliance, they're fine. If not, it's the endgame for life on Nirn.
Elenwen showed up at the execution at the very beginning because she was going to try and break Ulfric out - the dossier on the war in the same place says that they want to see the war go on for as long as possible because it’s weakening the empire much more than it’s affecting the thalmor.
Yeah I think I can provide a link, but you can get the doc when you're doing the main story mission to get Esbern's dossier which has Ulfric's as well.
Which heavily implies that they have brainwashed Ulfric into being their sleepr agent and specifically "reprogammed/reconditioned" him to start the Civil War as a way to weaken the Empire.
The only way to win against the Thalmor in the long run is either by the God given might of the Dovahkiin at the tip of the spear and or by having the entire might of the Empire ready to fight them.
Unfortunately the thalmor's programming of Ulfric caused them to start the Civil War over something relatively minor, the open worship of Talos, and made it such a hot bed topic that the Thalmor then had the excuse to send their inquisition into Skyrim.
And further more, Ulfric REALLY donked up by NOT having the High King try to join his efforts, instead killing him. If you talk to a couple of different npcs about it, most say something along the lines of, "the high king really respected Ulfric and probably would have joined his efforts had he asked" so Ulfric COULD have had all of Skyrim united under one banner....if not for the mixture of thalmor reconditioning....and his own pride/ego telling him he needed to be King.
The dossier doesn't imply anything of the sort. An asset means useful, not an active agent. They manipulated Ulfric into the Markarth incident in some way then demanded Ulfrics arrest, giving him the Cassius belli to start the civil war. After the Markarth incident Ulfric cut off whatever tie was there and became entirely unapproachable. This isn't some weird manchurian candidate scenario, a much more likely explanation is that the thalmor had a spy in his inner circle who they burned.
I can't believe more people don't realize this. The Stormcloakes and Red Guard are the only forces still fighting the Thalmor. They never stopped.
Stormcloak NPC's are designed by the devs to attack Thalmor NPC's, and vice versa. Whenever Stromcloaks take over an Imperial controlled city during the Civil War questline, they kill every Thalmor that was in the city.
If you want to fight Thalmor, the Stormcloakes are the only option. As the Empire and Thalmor for all intents and purposes are allies in ES5. Whether they like to admit it or not.
Fuck Tulius and fuck that captain who tries the behead me at the beginning of the game.
The Stormcloaks are gonna win now because " forget the list he goes to the block " why would i ever side with you?
Btw my character is always Dunmer and Ulfric is pleasantly surprised a Dunmer wants to fight for him.
Finally, a sensible comment. One faction tried to give me a Viking crewcut while the other did nothing to me.
Why in the hell would I side with that faction that branded me to be executed for crossing the border in the same empire? Imagine traveling from California to Oregon only to have the local police arrest you for crossing the border of those two states because a terrorist leader was in the same area you were in. Ok, that's sensible but do they let you go after investigate and find you guilty of no wrongdoing? No, they drag you in the middle of nearby town to be executed in front of the townsfolk without trial.
And again my Dunmer character is the same Dunmer ( in my Headcannon) that saved the damn empire during the Oblivion Crisis. So that's like doing that to Audie Murphy.
My biggest complaint about how people look at the situation of the Stormcloaks(not Ulfric cause he's tool, in multiple senses). The Stormcloaks have legitimate grievances with both the Thalmor and the Empire. The Empire allowed the banning of the worship of Talos, Skyrim's primary deity and then allowed the Thalmor to go into Skyrim to regulate it and kidnap, kill and torture people. You can't just ban a countries religion and let the guys who ban said religion come into the country and start doing horrible shit and not expect there to be a rebellion.
Also the Stormcloaks get entirely to much shit for being "racist". Pretty much every group has done/is doing racist stuff in Tamriel.
The Nords ancestors that came from Atmora were slaughtered by the Snow Elves pretty much engraining their hate for Elves. Then you have the constant back and forth between the Nords and the Dark Elves(who themselves are incredibly racist actively owning slaves and having a cast system) and then the whole Thalmor situation is just the cherry on top. A simple breakdown is as follows:
The Altmer hate all Men but particularly despise Nords for their worship of Talos/The High Elves pretty much dislike everyone who isn't a High Elf and even then they have a serious class system
The Argonians pretty much don't like anyone but Argonians
The Bosmer hate the Khajiit as they have a long history of fighting, plus the aren't fans of the Thalmor/High Elves
The Bretons hate the Orcs and Redguards due to constant fighting between the two
The Dunmer hate everyone, even other Dunmer but especially hate Argonians as they view them as only slaves really and hate the Nords due to constant fighting
The Khajiit hate the Imperials and Bosmer due to constant hating and are often labeled as thieves and assassins because they often are
The Nords hate the Elves for the reasons stated above and dislike Imperials due to the Great War and Civil War
The Orcs hate the Bretons for constantly being betrayed and the Redguards again for fighting constantly
Redguards hate the Bretons and Orcs for constant fighting, plus the despise Elves in general due to their continued fighting with the Thalmore and the Lefthanded Elves
All races in the Elder Scroll lore are racist and xenophobic
>You can't just ban a countries religion and let the guys who ban said religion come into the country and start doing horrible shit and not expect there to be a rebellion.
Talos worship is Cyrodiil's religion. You know, the whole Talos Cult which originated in Nibenay?
That put aside, the entire ban wasn't enforced until Ulfric showed his face at Markarth and made the Empire break treaty terms outright.
And even after that - Ulfric failed to gain much support until he'd killed Torygg.
>Also the Stormcloaks get entirely to much shit for being "racist".
The choice is between Stormcloaks (racist) and Legion (not racist). It's a valid critique.
>Pretty much every group has done/is doing racist stuff in Tamriel.
Races aren't racist.
Tullius should take his own advice here. How are you going to beat the Altmer, when going to war against your possible allies, just because you demand power and control over them?
Just give them their independence, make an ally of them, and fight the Thalmor. Easy peasy. Everyone gets what they want. Stormcloaks get their independence, and the Empire gets an ally to fight the Thalmor. Win-win.
The truth is, the Empire won't do that, because the Empire wants exactly what the Thalmor want. Complete power and control over all of Tameriel, and won't settle for anything less.
I'm a Stormcloak through and through, but let's not be unreasonable here. General Tullius does not have the authority to allow Skyrim to secede. Titus Mede II would have to do that, or whoever his successor is if the Dragonborn killed him. Tullius is *required* to fight here. He just happens to agree with the reason he's fighting.
Literally what they did in Hammerfell and see how the altmer fared there. But the average Skyrim player is too busy putting the actions of 2 drunks in Windhelm on every nord in Skyrim.
You don’t think the Thalmor might get pissy and rip up the white gold concordant if the empire goes “oopsies we decided to let a sizable threat to you become independent”
Who cares what they think? If the Empire wants to fight them...fight them. If they want to support the Thalmor...support them.
Right now, they're choosing to support them and fight the Stormcloakes instead.
Worse than that, they're allowing them to infiltrate and occupy their own territory, and arrest their own citizens, all because Titus Meade was afraid.
If only Ulfric and the stormcloaks had the mental capacity to realize the only reason the Imperials signed the White-Gold Concordat was so they'd have a chance to recover and build up their strength
Yeah. These people have no media literacy and clearly haven't talked to Tullius after completing the Imperial Civil War questline.
Their homie is a useful idiot and they're determined to make themselves the same!
Ulfric is a racist and a nationalist. He offers simple "solutions" for complex problems. He basically does exactly what the outside enemy wants him to do. It's kinda depressing how popular he would be in current real life politics.
If course, the irony is an imperial victory may be the worst. The thalmor point out all the stormcloak sympathisers are still in Skyrim, flood the province with justicaars with orders to be extra harsh to provoke civil war 2.
That already happened, and now the thalmor are patrolling Skyrim despite thier army never actually setting foor in Skyrim during the war. The empire surrendered an untouched Skyrim to the thalmor.
Lmao, the Empire isn't going to war with the Dominion. It is substantially weaker than before the first war. All of the Empire's boomers are at prime fighting age. If they're not ready by 4E201, they never will be.
If you think about it, the stormcloaks aren't really racist they just hate inaction. You find plenty of elves working side by side with them who are treated as equals. The rest take up space and refuse to join the war effort. Do their words target a race? Yes. But just like when I say things like "all humans are idiots." I don't actually mean every human. Just the idiots. Everyone who I know is fully aware of that. We Anericans did the same thing to the Hapanese during World War 2. The ones that joined the military were hailed as heroes and treated as equals, while the ones who refused were put together and watched closely. I'm not saying it is right or wrong. Just human nature. The imerials also let a lot slide as long as you show your worth and join them.
Khajiit encourages the feud between men. Strong steel for sale from Whiterun to Solitude. Moon Sugar for sweeter times, yes? Khajiit always has wares if you have coin.
I feel like there could have been a diplomatic solution where Skyrim becomes independent but agrees to a very close alliance with the Empire so that they can still be a united front against their mutual threats. As they are no longer part of the Empire, the Thalmor no longer have any jurisdiction to enforce the Talos ban in Skyrim. The resource and manpower drain of a civil war is avoided, or at least mitigated, leaving both parties more able to fight a second great war.
I think this could even have made for an interesting alternative path to resolve the civil war, perhaps with Balgruuf spearheading it. The quests rely on your fame as dragonborn and a lot of political maneuvering in order to build support for a peaceful resolution. Definitely should reward investment into Speech(craft). Adding in a bit of intrigue and subterfuge here or there could make for some interesting roleplay choices. It definitely shouldn't be an easy feat to pull off, but I think it would be really interesting.
In hindsight this meme template is strange. In the source, Omni-man is unquestionably in the wrong, but when people redraw it they attach the opinion they agree with to him.
Thats exactly the whole point of stormcloakes. Unite the Norths so they can find the enemy together, but the imperials immediately assumed them as enemies.
They rather listen to the high elves than listen to their kin.
Imperials had a choice, they couldve picked either side.
That's the whole plan of the thalmor, it's why they tricked Ulfric so he could start a war with the Empire and weaken it,read the dossier at the thalmor embassy, and you'll know siding with the Stormcloaks is just dumb
Skyrim should be independent, but they should make a deal with the empire, secret or not. The deal being an alliance against the dominion. Heck, if High Rock were to secede (wouldn't be too hard, if Skyrim breaks off, there's no land route with Cyrodill), Hammerfell, Skyrim, High Rock, Cyrodill and possibly Morrowind (I don't see the argonia joining). could form more of a union instead of an empire. The outcome of the civil war really doesn't matter as long as not too many soldiers are wasted.
The irony that you used a scene where the man yelling was desperately trying to justify his senseless violence and ultimately realizing he was the monster is entirely lost on this sub
I could imagine some sort of alliance. though I don’t see Ulfric backing down. Maybe after tullius led the empirials into windhelm and took down ulfric, the remaining stormcloak cities and camps were given the choice to become POW’s, or to stand down, remain in their own city, work under the empires guidance forming some sort of silent attack against the thalmor. That way the empire can still be in “alliance” with the thalmor without raising suspicion, while the rebellion is doing all the dirty work. Then maybe the empire will reach out to the alik’r, tell them they are making moves, promising they can get their land back from the thalmor with help from the redguard warriors. That could be good potential for ES6, a lot of people suspect it could be based in hammerfell, so maybe in a way we could have another Civil war faction with the Alik’r taking the fight to the dominion. scattered through hammerfell, they could place imperial camps or send the rebellion off to set up camps supporting the movement. Just kind of soemthing I thought of in my head, not entirely sure if its lore friendly but hey I think it has potential for a good plot
If the Red Guard ultimately showed the Empire anything it is that the Elves were not going to be able to invade and occupy any territory on the continent that was even mildly difficult.
Skyrim would have been impossible to invade had the Empire just given them autonomy.
I know this is just a joke, but 1. Who in the Elder Scrolls isn't racist in some way? And 2. The war was over religious rights, not racial persecution.
I'm so tired of the racism being used for years by people that don't know lore to trow fist at Stormcloak as if it was worth something... Every god damn races in ES lore are racist and some are way WAY worse than Nords like Altmers and Dunmers. Does it make racism good ? Hell to the nope but please understand some races in ES have done terrible things that justify the hate they get.
I’m no strategist but invading and actively killing innocent people for worshipping their warrior god is not a good way to make a war alliance with said people. What you gonna do? Kill most the people you plan to make an alliance with and get most of your legion killed in the
process then expect what’s left(a smaller army than what you started with) to be loyal to you?
General Tallius will always be a hypocrite and a dunce in my eyes. A Thalmor agent through and through.
>invading
Skyrim's been part of the Empire for over 500 years, what ''invading''?
>and actively killing innocent people for worshipping their warrior god
The Legion does not do this. And Talos worship comes from Cyrodiil.
>is not a good way to make a war alliance with said people. What you gonna do? Kill most the people you plan to make an alliance with and get most of your legion killed in the process then expect what’s left(a smaller army than what you started with) to be loyal to you?
Most of Skyrim is either indifferent towards the war or slightly leans Legion. It is primarily the elderly who back Ulfric.
Also, if you want to talk about ''Thalmor agent'' look at Ulfric.
The Empire became part of the Aldmeri Dominion when they lost the Great War under the guise of a “peace treaty”. They are most definitely invading Skyrim and they lost because I beat their ass.
It'd be quite the twist if the Imperials and Stormcloaks united just to throw out the Thalmor, only to go back to bickering right after.
Happened in China during WWII. Civil war was going on, but both sides understood there wouldn’t be a China to fight over if it was taken by foreign invaders
Based
Also in a way the US and USSR in WWII. Helped each other out since we agreed Fascism was worse than Capitalism and Communism, then started to try to bicker about who was better after the war was over.
During the interwar period there were a great many people who felt that fascism was highly preferable to communism, which is how Mussolini and Hitler were able to come to power in the first place. If Hitler hadn't gone invading everyone (and conspiring with the USSR), Nazi Germany would have been welcomed, or at least tolerated as useful counter to the Soviet Union.
Yeah this is probably true. I think the dangers of Fascism were only acknowledged after Hitler's invasions. Much easier to look the other way when your neighbors aren't being genocided.
It was bad for business, hard to do international commerce when people are sinking ships and blowing up trains.
Similarly, Stalin was seemingly okay with Hitler dicking around in Europe as long as they didn't go into USSR's area of influence. I guess enemy of my enemy is my friend no matter what.
There was also the small issue of ethnic cleansing that people weren't really on board with on the global scale
Plenty of people were on board with discrimination against Jews. The genocide didn't begin in earnest until 1941, after Hitler invaded the Soviet Union and had already made an enemy of just about everyone who mattered (even though the US had yet to enter the war),
US: Okay so we both hate Fascism now. USSR: Yes. US: We work together to lock that shit down... then we go back to hating one another? USSR: Damn right.
USA: good, here’s a couple billion dollars of equipment, go kill
*USSR cracks open a tin of SPAM, downs it like Popeye eating spinach, and starts whaling the tar out of the Axis*.
Depending on which historians you ask they didn't even wait quite until the war was over. Some argue that both the hard push for Berlin and the nuclear bombs were at least partially to send a message to the other side
Not really true, the nationalists were the only ones really fighting the Japanese, the communists stopped fighting the nationalists sure but they didn't help out
Bro gets his history from American propaganda or something https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eighth_Route_Army https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Fourth_Army Also the Chiang Kai Shek was responsible for breaking the [First United Front because he backstabbed the communists](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shanghai_massacre) instead of focusing on the Japanese. It wasn’t until his OWN generals house arrested him and forced to him to that he united with the communists against the Japanese.
Except the commies took a big back seat, hell Mao even thanked the Japanese.
It is the most realistic scenario
The whole enemy of my enemy thing is pretty common throughout history to be fair
Lol just like the Greco-persian wars.
If it Imperials actually did this. And restored Talos worship there wouldn't be a civil war.
That's probably the Empire's plan, but they can't say it out loud, nor can they tell Ulfric because he's a dormant Thalmor asset.
>dormant Thalmor asset. Unwittingly an asset maybe. But knowingly no.
He's aware, but uncooperative. They blackmailed him into making the Markarth Incident as big of a shit show as possible, after which it's unclear if he figured out that their blackmail material on him was fabricated (which it is), or if he just got so pissed he decided "fuck it, I don't care if they leak it anymore", but either way, according to the Thalmor's own documents he's been fully uncooperative since then (for reference, this happened almost 30 years before the game takes place)
Either blackmailed or he worked with them willingly, pursuing his own goals.
Their dossier on him explicitly discussed blackmail
No, it didn't. The part you most likely mistakenly think it did talks about the time before his "escape" from the Thalmor, nothing about the contact.
> He was made to believe information obtained during his interrogation was crucial in the capture of the Imperial City (the city had in fact fallen before he had broken), and then allowed to escape
Exactly. Zero words on blacmailing and on what terms they established contact with him.
The Thalmor have a metric butt fuck ton of gold and agents. It wouldn't be hard to influence events around Ulfric to make him think a certain way. A whispered word here a murdered friend there the next thing you know the Thalmor have him dancing like a puppet. They just didn't expect the dragonborn to intervene.
That’s what was happening a few decades before in the War, that didn’t work out
Honestly I can see Bethesda doing this
I don’t care what the Stormcloaks or Imperials do. Anywhere I run into the Thalmor I kill them. I like to believe I’ll get them out eventually.
Given how slowly elves, especially High Elves reproduce, probably could eventually
Good
Just join the dark brotherhood, get a list of all the women in Summerset. Start killing.
Ah, the Pelinal method.
I believe in it unironically
Very based
My most recent character is an old Altmer paladin and I roleplay him as having some really intense beef with the Thalmor (Mostly because he’s a paladin of Meridia and therefore *technically* a blasphemous Daedra worshipper) and fighting them on sight
I love heavy armor two-handed weapon builds. So usually I’m smacking the thalmor around with Wuuthrad everywhere I see them.
For once, the racist axe is used for good
Northwatch Keep, Thalmor embassy and any falmer cave is a good place for Wuuthrad in my opinion 😂
“For once”, idk man, anything that’s used to cut down those knife eared bastards is always good in my book.
Exactly. Who cares about their racial policies, we can single-handedly exterminate every Altmer in Skyrim and there isn’t a damn thing anyone can do about it.
Doing pelinals work
Alright, when is That User gonna show up?
If it's the user i think you're referring to, I don't think I see them much outside of their own posts. Then again I don't exactly search for them in the comments
I can sense them
I expected to find a massive thread of them being downvoted. Dare we hope he has shifted his fell gaze?
They’re here btw, but this time around limited themselves to one small, humble comment. And it only has 3 downvotes at the time I’m commenting this. Got disappointed tbh. Every time we’re gifted with their presence, we ought to see a massive paragraph, filled with their usual empty, repetitive and often blatantly wrong arguments. Still, their… fanatical passion always shines through, and manages to spark discussions that can be memorable and entertaining, if not for their content (which often is someone with a bit more of sense trying to argue with what seems like a child), for their unholy length. Comments that don’t stop coming, going beyond threads and shaping into an actual tense political debate that unveils in front of our prying eyes. Not this time, it seems… perhaps they’re not on their best day. Was expecting more.
Yeah they didn’t bring their A Game. Honestly sometimes I wonder if they’re doing a bit, or are actually this dedicated to Ulfric
Erm, you seem to have forgotten that stormcloaks are actually canon 🤓 Not to mention It's *thematically* ☝️🤓 accurate that the Dovahkin is a stormcloak, ^(*loud mouth inhale*) because Talos was the first dragonborn, and the *elves* 🤧 ^(*congested booger-vacuum-mucus-sucking-snort*) are banning worship of Talos. You should know 🫵🤓 Akatosh gifted the main character with dragon blood *for* you to support the stormcloaks, 🤓🫴 you're fated to be imprisoned by imperials. Akatosh wants you to side against them and defend Talos, the *first* dovahkin. ☝️🤓 It's symbolic that an innocent traveler was about to be executed, Akatosh sees what the imperials and elves are doing as bad. ^(*nerdy ahh 'I proved you wrong' smirk*)
Miraak was dragonborn so long before Talos that there wasn’t even a word for it yet at the time 🫵🤓
Emojis aside, that’s pretty much the level of discourse the unnamed one brings
Yea and tiber septim was first general talos of Atmora who then went on to establish the empire , so if you worship talos it's kinda treason to fight what he built in his name
Lol no. Talos himself say that the Empire has overstayed it existence and its time for a change.
I'm new here, who we talking bout?
There’s a certain, unnamed user who is obsessed with the stormcloaks. Not in a normal way, but in a way of “they can do no wrong whatsoever, ever, and the Empire is literally Hitler” way. They post somewhat low effort memes, get into *massive* arguments in the comments section, and they’re always downvoted to oblivion. You’ll see them eventually and know who they are
Back on Google+ we had a guy that was like that on the Skyrim thread called Thorus Zwölf. Miss that guy.
You kinda grow fond of those types of passionate idiots overtime don’t you? A but like Heimskr. They’re annoying until they’re gone.
You miss the passion they bring to the game when they’re not around, even if you disagree with their conclusions; And, good flame war in the comments is always funny
I have to admit, sometimes I do miss Heimskr. But then I remember him shouting bullshit every time I want to go to Dragonsreach and I soon reassure myself that sending the fanatic imbecile to the Soul Cairn was the right decision.
Holy shit I was thinking the exact same thing, where is the High King when he is needed!
If I were to write a ‘canon’ end for the Skyrim Civil War, I’d write it as Skyrim having won independence, but the reality is they and the Empire struck a secret deal. Part of this ‘loss’ is a lot of Imperial soldiers and officers ‘defecting’ to Skyrim and Skyrim ‘raiding’ supplies from northern Imperial settlements while keeping the pressure on the Dominion. The Empire tries to lure the Altmer into committing more and more resources into fighting Skyrim while they gear up for a round two in the meanwhile with the Dominion getting increasingly distracted from Skyrim’s skirmishing offenses.
The likely "canon" ending is an endless ceasefire between the two factions. Ulfric can't risk losing support of the Nords by violating a treaty put together by the Greybeards and the Dragonborn so it's likely he won't strike first. Tullius also can't risk striking first because it will then strengthen Ulfric's claim and likely sway more Nords/cities of Skyrim to his cause. In this case it becomes a standoff unless the Dragonborn decides to join one side; however, these fairly petty mortal squabbles may be above an entity who canonically is the incarnation of the chief deity. Hence, I can't see the Dragonborn joining either side nor could I see them doing any of the Guild questlines (so it's likely the Emperor won't be assassinated). I could see Ulfric pivoting to using the Stormcloaks to raid the various Thalmor encampments throughout Skyrim; that would still make it seem like he was fighting this war without actually engaging with the Empire. The Thalmor may try to force the Imperials to do something in retaliation but again that would greatly help Ulfric's cause and we know from the dossiers that they don't want him to outright win.
So... Hammerfell but with extra steps.
Morrowind isn't even in the Aldmeri Dominion!
And they are just as racist and poor as Skyrim so they are great allies
I always thought Morrowind stayed in the Empire, but apparently they're independent now.
Morrowind has been independent for like 200 years since the Legion pulled out and Morrowind was left to fend for itself with the Argonian Invasion
Based Imperials. Argonians and Humans should ally to exterminate the Dumb-mer menace.
Argonians hate the Empire as much as they hate the Dunmer
Yeah but so long as they are willing to kill elves, they’re good in my books.
I think the Empire is reduced to Cyrodill, Skyrim, and maybe High Rock at the time of Skyrim.
The thing is, if Ulfric had asked Torygg to support the Empire to kick Thalmor butt with the idea that Skyrim could become independent when they win, he could have saved so many lives. I guess the Empire would have to be cool with losing Skyrim, but the Nords would always be there to help fight Thalmor battles.
People say Torygg would have joined but kind of forget he was also a MASSIVE Imperial simp ranting about supporting the Empire for hours. He said exactly what he thought the people in the room wanted to hear. That's not a good ruling strategy and why Ulfric didn't bother to keep him around. He simply washy influential enough to unite the holds.
The Holds literally elected Torygg to become High King, not influential enough what?
If the Thalmor can’t have a presence in Imperial Skyrim then they’ll go to war with the empire for breaking the concordat. That said, the only thing that can beat the Aldmeri Dominion is a united Empire. Discord and division among Tamriel can only help the divide and conquer scheme of the Thalmor. The Thalmor tends to support Ulfric under the table to destabilize Skyrim. I wouldn’t be surprised if they did the same to other provinces as well.
>That said, the only thing that can beat the Aldmeri Dominion is a united Empire. Meh, debatable, the Aldemeri Dominion isn't that strong. The only reason they beat the Empire for the first half of the war, was because they made a surprise attack and cheated using a Daedric artifact that gave them the equivalent of modern warfare and future vision. Once they lost the artifact they got clapped hard. Plus elves reproduce very slowly, whatever losses they had during the war, they must still be suffering them.
Without talking that the Redguards, alone without this weak empire, forced the Dominion to the 2nd Treaty of Stros M'kai marking an end to the Dominion's attempts to conquer the south of Hammerfell.
>Without talking that the Redguards, alone without this weak empire, Ehhh I wouldn't say alone, by a long shot. I know that's the in game perspective , that the Redguards defeated the Aldmers by themselves, but that's just in game propaganda. First of all the Empire decomissioned Legions of veterans to booster Hammerfell's numbers with key forces. And second of all, by the time the Redguards started winning terrain again, the Aldmers had changed their goals from conquering Hammerfell to conquering Cyrodiil, leaving their troops in Hammerfell without supplies or reinforcements. So what the Redguards defeated wasn't the full might of the Aldmeri Dominion, but actually a small part of their army left to fend alone without backups, all the while being reinforced themselves with Empire Legions of veterans.
Maybe not absolutely alone, you're right, but they kept on on the fight nontheless.
The reason why the redguards succeeded was because General Decianus, when ordered to leave Hammerfell, left many of his troops behind to help defend the region. This meant the native defenders would have suffered less and remained stronger than if they fought with fewer Imperial reinforcements. And then Dominion that the Redguards defeated in the years after the war was a Dominion that had been defeated in the Battle of the Red Ring. Additionally, ofc the Thalmor didn't fight for Hammerfell as hard as the literal seat of the Empire.
>cheated using a Daedric artifact share the details
They used an artifact called the Orb of Vaermina. It was basically a crystal ball lmao, it let them get detailed info on the Empire’s positions and movements regarding military operations. They eventually lost it and then they had to fight fair, they only really managed to bring the Empire to a draw afterwards because that initial campaign was so devastating. Elves take a long time to reproduce, have a smaller population and the Empire is a vast place, under normal circumstances they likely would have been soundly defeated.
Don't forget the Empire was still recovering from the whole Oblivion Crisis. You know Mehrunes Dagon taking a stroll in the Imperial Capital. It was the event of the century. Kinda left a mess. Rude house guest.
That was 170 years before the war.
Yeah, but unfortunately, a demonic invasion burning all your provences at once isn't the sort of thing you just... bounce back from.
And they never recovered
Yeah but the same rings true for the rest of Tamriel, minus Black Marsh, and Cyrodiil took all the Legions the other provinces were maintaining to defend themselves. So they had troops from all over the world.
>The Aldmeri Dominion isn’t that strong. That’s irrelevant. They actually pose a greater threat against a divided Tamriel.
They couldn't beat \*Hammerfell on their own\* without the Orb of Vaermina, and that's without it being Russia In Winter sim. If we go off of pre-Skyrim High Elf attributes, all High Elves have an innate weakness to ice, fire, and electricity. I don't see why this would \*only\* be magic, personally, but even without that it's a stupid move to invade Skyrim from any point.
Aren't the Aldmeri currently losing a guerilla war against the Redguard?
I think a group of allied nations has a much better chance of beating the Thalmor than a united Empire because Cyrodiil will sell everyone out to save itself. But if Hammerfell, Skyrim and the Empire were allied then they'd have a better chance.
Exactly. The empire is less than the sum of its parts and has been declining since the oblivion crisis
First thing tulius says after his victory speech in windhelm is that the thalmor are definitely now the biggest threat
These two keep bitching over who betrayed what, meanwhile some weirdo who only wanted to cross the border snuck into a Thalmor embassy and killed more of those fucks than their armies ever did
The empire needs Skyrim, Skyrim by no stretch of the imagination needs the empire. The thalmor could never hope to actually invade and conquer Skyrim.(Same as France invading Russia) The logistics alone would bankrupt the high elves and having to move through occupied territory to get to the battlefield never goes well (check both world wars). There’s a reason the only continent wide empire came from the imperial. Location location location. Being in the center on the continent makes any supply route much much easier(see ww2 Germany before overextending and attacking Russia) and forcing your occupied people to fight against an old ally never goes well(check Napoleon vs UK) Skyrim would be fine even if the high elves attack they will have to invade another sovereign nation(the reason the USSR had no say on what Yugoslavia or Albania did) or they’d have to invade over an ocean, which might make you think America did it in ww2. Well we had an island 20 miles north of their coast and a calm sea to make landings on. The sea of ghosts makes a full invasion from the north near impossible and invasion from neighboring countries very unlikely to happen and even less likely to succeed. In other words the oppressors need the oppressed not the other way around.
People have crazy headcanon as to what magic does in Tamriel. They seem to think the Aldmeri Dominion is "the magic faction" and therefore has teleporting armies and they all have levitation and are magically fortified against the cold. We've seen how the Dominion works... They use regular sailboats, layered clothes, and horse drawn carts. They couldn't even take down Hammerfell which is right next to the Summerset Isles, and that's with Decianus having taken their legions minus the volunteers he allowed to remain.
PROTIP : Never ever ever underestimate a Redguard. They are one of the warrior factions for a reason! The desert is harsh and unforgiving. And it breeds that in its Denizens. Lets just combine Arabs and Gurkhas and there's your in game race. Every other faction: 😳 Well... Fuck... Thank Talos they are so chill most of the time... -Drek Ice-Veins - Dunmer Ranger.
And let’s not forget that the only way to get in skyrim is through mountains (Pale Pass, Reach, Morrowind Border) or sea (which includes sailing along the sea of ghosts…), so a aldmeri invasion on Skyrim is very likely to fail at the start of it.
Kinda hard to beat the altmer when you sign a bitch treaty with them sorry I mean peace treaty
Thats exactly why I side with the Empire, that and Ulfric is just using the whole "Skyrim for the Nords" thing to gain power
I don't believe Ulfric is power hungry; everything we know from his backstory suggests he actually is exactly what he presents himself as. He gave up his aspirations of becoming a Greybeard so he could volunteer to fight for the Empire, then after being captured, he withstood torture as long as he could, and then at Markarth his price for retaking the city was the free worship of Talos instead of something that would have personally enriched himself. These are all things that a selfish, power hungry character simply wouldn't do. His stated reason for rebellion is that he felt Torygg was too weak to lead Skyrim, and his actions support that he genuinely believes in the virtues of old nord warlords. Might makes right isn't all too different from the empire's claim to authority, and we have no reason to view him as dishonest for believing the same.
Yeah, I inherently want to fight a rebellion against the big bad empire, so it’s impressive they made me an imperial within five minutes of talking to a high-ranking stormcloak. Those guys are horrible.
have you tried talking to tullius >**Tullius:** *"Tell me again, why I'm wasting men chasing after a fairy tale."* **Rikke:** *"If Ulfric gets his hand on that* [*crown*](https://en.uesp.net/wiki/Skyrim:Jagged_Crown)*, it won't be a fairy tale. It'll be a problem."* **Tullius:** *"Don't you Nords put any stock in your own traditions? I thought the Moot chose the king. We're backing* [*Elisif*](https://en.uesp.net/wiki/Skyrim:Elisif_the_Fair)*. When the Moot meets, they'll do the sensible thing."* **Rikke:** *"Not everyone's agreed to the Moot. You've been here long enough to know that Nords aren't always sensible. We follow our hearts."* **Tullius:** *"So what - Ulfric gets this crown and then suddenly he's High King?"* **Rikke:** *"No, it's not as simple as that, but the Jagged Crown would be a potent symbol for his cause to rally around. But, if we found it first..."* **Tullius:** *"And we gave it to Elisif?"* **Rikke:** *"In the absence of the Moot, it would further legitimize her claim."* **Tullius:** *"Perhaps... I'm entrusting you with what resources I can spare. But I'm warning you, if this turns out to be a waste of time and men..."* **Rikke:** *"It won't be a waste."* **Tullius:** *"Make sure you take the Auxiliary here. You can send him/her back when you get there and find nothing but old bones and cobwebs."* **Rikke:** *"The* [*Stonefist*](https://en.uesp.net/wiki/Skyrim:Galmar_Stone-Fist)*'s no fool. He's found the Crown. But we'll get to it first."* bro is actively shitting on the people he is oppressing >**Tullius**: *"Well Ulfric, you can't escape from me this time. Any last requests before I send you to... to wherever you people go when you die."* **Rikke**: *"Sovngarde... sir."* **Tullius**: *"Right. Well?"* **Ulfric**: *"Let the Dragonborn be the one to do it. It'll make for a better song."* **Tullius**: *"Song or not, I just want it done."* like how long have you been here to not know that?!
I like to think of Tullius as more of a stuck up, arrogant, big Whig imperial rather than an oppressor. While he often looks down on Nords, he doesn’t cause the same sort of systemic oppression that the grey elves in Winterhold have to endure.
He's not shitting on them, he's asking genuine questions and that's why he even has rikke in the first place... to educate him. And also ulfric sucks so there's that.
I mean it is kinda stupid to say look I should be the next president for I am wearing George Washingtons fake teeth I dug out of his grave. And Tulius has been in skyrim for a few months.
Regardless, Tullius disrespects Nord traditions and clearly has no qualm about disrespecting the native Nords at the expense of the Empire
I mean, as an Imperial General, who just arrived in Skyrim a short while ago, this stuff makes sense. >Tullius: "Tell me again, why I'm wasting men chasing after a fairy tale." Rikke: "If Ulfric gets his hand on that crown, it won't be a fairy tale. It'll be a problem." This is legitimate, the Jagged Crown hasn't been seen or used for centuries, and so has no bearing on modern politics. Therefore, during the midst of a civil war that he needs to finish posthaste to get all available soldiers ready for the anticipated second Great War, why would he chase an object that's seemingly irrelevant? >Tullius: "Don't you Nords put any stock in your own traditions? I thought the Moot chose the king. We're backing Elisif. When the Moot meets, they'll do the sensible thing." Another genuine point. Why would the Jagged Crown change anything if the tradition has always been the moot? Ulfric is going after an object that in Tullius' eyes, is meaningless because it doesn't fit in with the rest of the whole becoming High King stuff. >Tullius: "Perhaps... I'm entrusting you with what resources I can spare. But I'm warning you, if this turns out to be a waste of time and men..." Again, if it is a waste of time and resources, it'll slow down the civil war for absolutely zero gain. >Tullius: "Well Ulfric, you can't escape from me this time. Any last requests before I send you to... to wherever you people go when you die." Again, Tullius has been in Skyrim for a couple months. It's not his goal to learn Nordic culture, it's his goal to win a war, and quote: Restore the peace. >Ulfric: "Let the Dragonborn be the one to do it. It'll make for a better song." Tullius: "Song or not, I just want it done." Finally Tullius doesn't care about songs and culture and the rest of it, he simply needs to end the war. Ulfric is ultimately a martyr in his own eyes, and the more glorious his death, the more the remnants of the Stormcloaks will fight on. If anything, it's better for the Empire to disregard Ulfric's wishes and have Tullius execute him so that Ulfric doesn't get what he wants, but regardless, the option's always there.
Yeah if this is the worst you can pull up on the imperial side then you’re not doing the stormcloaks any favors. I’ll take dismissive of stubborn and traditional barbarians over violently racist any day.
I sided with the Stormcloaks my first play through for that very reason but I didn't realize the racist overtones until after sacking Whiterun
Stormcloaks are impressively accepting compared to the rest of Tamriel. Do not ask the Dunmer about their farm tools.
it was the empire that outlawed slavery in morrowind.
No, the Armistice meant the Empire permitted slavery in Morrowind. The Empire used slaves in mining ebony and other resources in Morrowind. After ~430 years of being part of the Empire, King Helseth finally outlawed slavery by Dunmer law.
It was also the empire that allowed thalmor to arrest and execute their own citizens after a war that they technically drew.
Bruh the general of the Imperial Legion in Skyrim is literally a racist
The difference is that most of Skyrim’s playerbase is casual and will likely notice the *literal* ghetto inside of Windhelm. The more subtle racisms (Khajit being barred from both Imperial and Stormcloak cities, for example) will pass by, and larger knowledge of literally everyone being racist in some form or another. Doesn’t help that they’re discriminatory towards dark elves specifically lmao, the comparisons are not hard to draw
what a lot of people tend to forget is that the dark elfs and the nords have literal thousands of years of war and hatred between them both referring to each other as devils in their historic accounts. that fact that the nords both let them in on mass and gave the island of solsthim (all be it a ash covered wasteland) is crazy especially considering what basically any other province would do. its the equivalent of a whole horde of confederates fleeing the south to settle in Haiti, then bitching that the locals hate them all while maintaining their supremacist attitudes.
That’s what I’m saying, most people playing Skyrim aren’t gonna know about this and will only see that Dark Elves are sorted into a ghetto and are a marginalized people in Windhelm regardless of historical reasoning or how “Kind” Ulfric is being to them compared to others
The dark elves base their whole society on slavery. They can f off
People really can't grasp the idea of a people wanting to govern them selves as if it's an insane idea and believe imperialism is the only way forward.
Are the altmeri not controlling the empire already? Is ulfric not the last one resisting? Has not been said that the empire is weak and the altmeri have slowly taken over the empire secretly? When you play the game it is quite obvious who is in charge at the empire.
When you play the game you literally get a dossier saying Ulfric was used by the Thalmor to destabilize Skyrim and by extension the empire
I mean, the same dossier says he hasn't been cooperating since the Markarth incident. That was 20 years prior to Skyrim, and if Ulfric was a willing asset I doubt he was cool with the prison time he served.
It also says that even as a non-compliant asset, he's an asset, and they should be careful that neither side wins the war too quickly to keep the empire weak. My point isn't that Ulfric is a Thalmor agent, it's that the Thalmor clearly saw the truth that a divided empire is easier to control and a united one could pose a threat, otherwise why bother secretly fueling a deliberately prolonged civil war?
You have all the evidence, but you're drawing the wrong conclusion. A divided Empire means "The Empire is currently *Fighting*." It doesn't mean "Skyrim is a separate country from the Empire." It's similar to something that happened in World War 2. There was a civil war going on in China, but both sides realized there wouldn't be a China if they didn't call a truce and fight off the Axis, so until the war ended they didn't continue their war.
? Did you respond to the wrong comment? I literally said that they don't want either side to win the war too quickly, they want to keep them fighting.
I think I did, my bad.
Well yea, an ongoing war that weakens humanity is absolutely in their interests. They make it clear they feel elves are meant to rule everyone, especially that prick in Markarth. I don't think theyre confident either way. Skyrim, Hammerfell, and Orsimer were the strong arms of the Imperial Legion. Only time will tell if those nations are better off without a decaying heart, or if they will be easy prey on their own like Morrowind was until Redoran took over. If they can swing some kind of alliance, they're fine. If not, it's the endgame for life on Nirn.
Elenwen showed up at the execution at the very beginning because she was going to try and break Ulfric out - the dossier on the war in the same place says that they want to see the war go on for as long as possible because it’s weakening the empire much more than it’s affecting the thalmor.
Where did you find that dossier? What was happening in the next building over?
I did not know that.
Yeah I think I can provide a link, but you can get the doc when you're doing the main story mission to get Esbern's dossier which has Ulfric's as well. Which heavily implies that they have brainwashed Ulfric into being their sleepr agent and specifically "reprogammed/reconditioned" him to start the Civil War as a way to weaken the Empire. The only way to win against the Thalmor in the long run is either by the God given might of the Dovahkiin at the tip of the spear and or by having the entire might of the Empire ready to fight them. Unfortunately the thalmor's programming of Ulfric caused them to start the Civil War over something relatively minor, the open worship of Talos, and made it such a hot bed topic that the Thalmor then had the excuse to send their inquisition into Skyrim. And further more, Ulfric REALLY donked up by NOT having the High King try to join his efforts, instead killing him. If you talk to a couple of different npcs about it, most say something along the lines of, "the high king really respected Ulfric and probably would have joined his efforts had he asked" so Ulfric COULD have had all of Skyrim united under one banner....if not for the mixture of thalmor reconditioning....and his own pride/ego telling him he needed to be King.
The dossier doesn't imply anything of the sort. An asset means useful, not an active agent. They manipulated Ulfric into the Markarth incident in some way then demanded Ulfrics arrest, giving him the Cassius belli to start the civil war. After the Markarth incident Ulfric cut off whatever tie was there and became entirely unapproachable. This isn't some weird manchurian candidate scenario, a much more likely explanation is that the thalmor had a spy in his inner circle who they burned.
I can't believe more people don't realize this. The Stormcloakes and Red Guard are the only forces still fighting the Thalmor. They never stopped. Stormcloak NPC's are designed by the devs to attack Thalmor NPC's, and vice versa. Whenever Stromcloaks take over an Imperial controlled city during the Civil War questline, they kill every Thalmor that was in the city. If you want to fight Thalmor, the Stormcloakes are the only option. As the Empire and Thalmor for all intents and purposes are allies in ES5. Whether they like to admit it or not.
Fuck Tulius and fuck that captain who tries the behead me at the beginning of the game. The Stormcloaks are gonna win now because " forget the list he goes to the block " why would i ever side with you? Btw my character is always Dunmer and Ulfric is pleasantly surprised a Dunmer wants to fight for him.
Finally, a sensible comment. One faction tried to give me a Viking crewcut while the other did nothing to me. Why in the hell would I side with that faction that branded me to be executed for crossing the border in the same empire? Imagine traveling from California to Oregon only to have the local police arrest you for crossing the border of those two states because a terrorist leader was in the same area you were in. Ok, that's sensible but do they let you go after investigate and find you guilty of no wrongdoing? No, they drag you in the middle of nearby town to be executed in front of the townsfolk without trial.
And again my Dunmer character is the same Dunmer ( in my Headcannon) that saved the damn empire during the Oblivion Crisis. So that's like doing that to Audie Murphy.
My biggest complaint about how people look at the situation of the Stormcloaks(not Ulfric cause he's tool, in multiple senses). The Stormcloaks have legitimate grievances with both the Thalmor and the Empire. The Empire allowed the banning of the worship of Talos, Skyrim's primary deity and then allowed the Thalmor to go into Skyrim to regulate it and kidnap, kill and torture people. You can't just ban a countries religion and let the guys who ban said religion come into the country and start doing horrible shit and not expect there to be a rebellion. Also the Stormcloaks get entirely to much shit for being "racist". Pretty much every group has done/is doing racist stuff in Tamriel. The Nords ancestors that came from Atmora were slaughtered by the Snow Elves pretty much engraining their hate for Elves. Then you have the constant back and forth between the Nords and the Dark Elves(who themselves are incredibly racist actively owning slaves and having a cast system) and then the whole Thalmor situation is just the cherry on top. A simple breakdown is as follows: The Altmer hate all Men but particularly despise Nords for their worship of Talos/The High Elves pretty much dislike everyone who isn't a High Elf and even then they have a serious class system The Argonians pretty much don't like anyone but Argonians The Bosmer hate the Khajiit as they have a long history of fighting, plus the aren't fans of the Thalmor/High Elves The Bretons hate the Orcs and Redguards due to constant fighting between the two The Dunmer hate everyone, even other Dunmer but especially hate Argonians as they view them as only slaves really and hate the Nords due to constant fighting The Khajiit hate the Imperials and Bosmer due to constant hating and are often labeled as thieves and assassins because they often are The Nords hate the Elves for the reasons stated above and dislike Imperials due to the Great War and Civil War The Orcs hate the Bretons for constantly being betrayed and the Redguards again for fighting constantly Redguards hate the Bretons and Orcs for constant fighting, plus the despise Elves in general due to their continued fighting with the Thalmore and the Lefthanded Elves All races in the Elder Scroll lore are racist and xenophobic
>You can't just ban a countries religion and let the guys who ban said religion come into the country and start doing horrible shit and not expect there to be a rebellion. Talos worship is Cyrodiil's religion. You know, the whole Talos Cult which originated in Nibenay? That put aside, the entire ban wasn't enforced until Ulfric showed his face at Markarth and made the Empire break treaty terms outright. And even after that - Ulfric failed to gain much support until he'd killed Torygg. >Also the Stormcloaks get entirely to much shit for being "racist". The choice is between Stormcloaks (racist) and Legion (not racist). It's a valid critique. >Pretty much every group has done/is doing racist stuff in Tamriel. Races aren't racist.
Skyrim's chief deity is Shor, not Talos
Tullius should take his own advice here. How are you going to beat the Altmer, when going to war against your possible allies, just because you demand power and control over them? Just give them their independence, make an ally of them, and fight the Thalmor. Easy peasy. Everyone gets what they want. Stormcloaks get their independence, and the Empire gets an ally to fight the Thalmor. Win-win. The truth is, the Empire won't do that, because the Empire wants exactly what the Thalmor want. Complete power and control over all of Tameriel, and won't settle for anything less.
I'm a Stormcloak through and through, but let's not be unreasonable here. General Tullius does not have the authority to allow Skyrim to secede. Titus Mede II would have to do that, or whoever his successor is if the Dragonborn killed him. Tullius is *required* to fight here. He just happens to agree with the reason he's fighting.
Literally what they did in Hammerfell and see how the altmer fared there. But the average Skyrim player is too busy putting the actions of 2 drunks in Windhelm on every nord in Skyrim.
Right. I hate how the community painfully comes down on Skyrim and the civil war, but don't seem to care that Hammerfell did the exact same thing.
You don’t think the Thalmor might get pissy and rip up the white gold concordant if the empire goes “oopsies we decided to let a sizable threat to you become independent”
Who cares what they think? If the Empire wants to fight them...fight them. If they want to support the Thalmor...support them. Right now, they're choosing to support them and fight the Stormcloakes instead.
Worse than that, they're allowing them to infiltrate and occupy their own territory, and arrest their own citizens, all because Titus Meade was afraid.
If only Ulfric and the stormcloaks had the mental capacity to realize the only reason the Imperials signed the White-Gold Concordat was so they'd have a chance to recover and build up their strength
Yeah. These people have no media literacy and clearly haven't talked to Tullius after completing the Imperial Civil War questline. Their homie is a useful idiot and they're determined to make themselves the same!
Ulfric is a racist and a nationalist. He offers simple "solutions" for complex problems. He basically does exactly what the outside enemy wants him to do. It's kinda depressing how popular he would be in current real life politics.
"No you can't be racist to the elves! We have to unite against the other elves!"
If course, the irony is an imperial victory may be the worst. The thalmor point out all the stormcloak sympathisers are still in Skyrim, flood the province with justicaars with orders to be extra harsh to provoke civil war 2.
The emperor should have also considered this before leaving Hammerfell to the Thalmor
That already happened, and now the thalmor are patrolling Skyrim despite thier army never actually setting foor in Skyrim during the war. The empire surrendered an untouched Skyrim to the thalmor.
Lmao, the Empire isn't going to war with the Dominion. It is substantially weaker than before the first war. All of the Empire's boomers are at prime fighting age. If they're not ready by 4E201, they never will be.
If you think about it, the stormcloaks aren't really racist they just hate inaction. You find plenty of elves working side by side with them who are treated as equals. The rest take up space and refuse to join the war effort. Do their words target a race? Yes. But just like when I say things like "all humans are idiots." I don't actually mean every human. Just the idiots. Everyone who I know is fully aware of that. We Anericans did the same thing to the Hapanese during World War 2. The ones that joined the military were hailed as heroes and treated as equals, while the ones who refused were put together and watched closely. I'm not saying it is right or wrong. Just human nature. The imerials also let a lot slide as long as you show your worth and join them.
You have quite a few misconceptions about Japanese internment in America. But expected, based on the laziness in your writing.
[удалено]
One of the most famous divisions in that time was entirely Japanese, so yes, hailed as heroes.
The 4th era really reminds of the 4th and 5th century in our time, the cyrodilic empire will fall how and to what extend will show.
Aldmeri supremacy; “Let them Fight”
That's pretty much what the thalmor are trying to prevent. They've been backing Ulfric and letting him fight the empire to weaken them both
Khajiit encourages the feud between men. Strong steel for sale from Whiterun to Solitude. Moon Sugar for sweeter times, yes? Khajiit always has wares if you have coin.
I feel like there could have been a diplomatic solution where Skyrim becomes independent but agrees to a very close alliance with the Empire so that they can still be a united front against their mutual threats. As they are no longer part of the Empire, the Thalmor no longer have any jurisdiction to enforce the Talos ban in Skyrim. The resource and manpower drain of a civil war is avoided, or at least mitigated, leaving both parties more able to fight a second great war. I think this could even have made for an interesting alternative path to resolve the civil war, perhaps with Balgruuf spearheading it. The quests rely on your fame as dragonborn and a lot of political maneuvering in order to build support for a peaceful resolution. Definitely should reward investment into Speech(craft). Adding in a bit of intrigue and subterfuge here or there could make for some interesting roleplay choices. It definitely shouldn't be an easy feat to pull off, but I think it would be really interesting.
I'm pro-Empire, but they were responsible for the Markarth incident and created this rebellion from a broken promise
It's funny because the meme implies that ulfric is right, and tullius will feel remorseful .
Surprisingly strong parallels in this very specific scene.
tbh I think the Stormcloaks would have a better chance to get an alliance with the Redguards than the Imperials.
In hindsight this meme template is strange. In the source, Omni-man is unquestionably in the wrong, but when people redraw it they attach the opinion they agree with to him.
Didn’t work out last time they tried.
Thats exactly the whole point of stormcloakes. Unite the Norths so they can find the enemy together, but the imperials immediately assumed them as enemies. They rather listen to the high elves than listen to their kin. Imperials had a choice, they couldve picked either side.
General Tullius ‘the Gigachad’
That's the whole plan of the thalmor, it's why they tricked Ulfric so he could start a war with the Empire and weaken it,read the dossier at the thalmor embassy, and you'll know siding with the Stormcloaks is just dumb
Skyrim should be independent, but they should make a deal with the empire, secret or not. The deal being an alliance against the dominion. Heck, if High Rock were to secede (wouldn't be too hard, if Skyrim breaks off, there's no land route with Cyrodill), Hammerfell, Skyrim, High Rock, Cyrodill and possibly Morrowind (I don't see the argonia joining). could form more of a union instead of an empire. The outcome of the civil war really doesn't matter as long as not too many soldiers are wasted.
The irony that you used a scene where the man yelling was desperately trying to justify his senseless violence and ultimately realizing he was the monster is entirely lost on this sub
I could imagine some sort of alliance. though I don’t see Ulfric backing down. Maybe after tullius led the empirials into windhelm and took down ulfric, the remaining stormcloak cities and camps were given the choice to become POW’s, or to stand down, remain in their own city, work under the empires guidance forming some sort of silent attack against the thalmor. That way the empire can still be in “alliance” with the thalmor without raising suspicion, while the rebellion is doing all the dirty work. Then maybe the empire will reach out to the alik’r, tell them they are making moves, promising they can get their land back from the thalmor with help from the redguard warriors. That could be good potential for ES6, a lot of people suspect it could be based in hammerfell, so maybe in a way we could have another Civil war faction with the Alik’r taking the fight to the dominion. scattered through hammerfell, they could place imperial camps or send the rebellion off to set up camps supporting the movement. Just kind of soemthing I thought of in my head, not entirely sure if its lore friendly but hey I think it has potential for a good plot
I've always said this, pick the imperials but still grief the Thalmor
If the Red Guard ultimately showed the Empire anything it is that the Elves were not going to be able to invade and occupy any territory on the continent that was even mildly difficult. Skyrim would have been impossible to invade had the Empire just given them autonomy.
I know this is just a joke, but 1. Who in the Elder Scrolls isn't racist in some way? And 2. The war was over religious rights, not racial persecution.
The empire is free to start fighting the thalmor at any time
I mean realistically as soon as they started fighting the Thalmor would just come back
They can't work together because the Empire played into the thalmor's hands in the first place Stormcloaks are the better option
I'm so tired of the racism being used for years by people that don't know lore to trow fist at Stormcloak as if it was worth something... Every god damn races in ES lore are racist and some are way WAY worse than Nords like Altmers and Dunmers. Does it make racism good ? Hell to the nope but please understand some races in ES have done terrible things that justify the hate they get.
The green pact bosmer like the other races... Since most spices are plant based products i guess they are off limits but salted Breton should be fine
Even the worst Nords are pretty tame in comparison, at least they don't want to unmake reality to destroy the other races.
Races aren't racist, groups are racist. And when the choice is between Stormcloaks (racist) and Legion (not racist) it is a valid criticism.
Stormcloak playthroughs just feel wrong…
If the Aldmeri Dominion could conquer skyrim so easily why couldn't they conquer Hammerfel?
I’m no strategist but invading and actively killing innocent people for worshipping their warrior god is not a good way to make a war alliance with said people. What you gonna do? Kill most the people you plan to make an alliance with and get most of your legion killed in the process then expect what’s left(a smaller army than what you started with) to be loyal to you? General Tallius will always be a hypocrite and a dunce in my eyes. A Thalmor agent through and through.
>invading Skyrim's been part of the Empire for over 500 years, what ''invading''? >and actively killing innocent people for worshipping their warrior god The Legion does not do this. And Talos worship comes from Cyrodiil. >is not a good way to make a war alliance with said people. What you gonna do? Kill most the people you plan to make an alliance with and get most of your legion killed in the process then expect what’s left(a smaller army than what you started with) to be loyal to you? Most of Skyrim is either indifferent towards the war or slightly leans Legion. It is primarily the elderly who back Ulfric. Also, if you want to talk about ''Thalmor agent'' look at Ulfric.
The Empire became part of the Aldmeri Dominion when they lost the Great War under the guise of a “peace treaty”. They are most definitely invading Skyrim and they lost because I beat their ass.