Join Empire or Stormcloaks? My Thoughts

[CaptainPatch]

I said that you had a point about Ulfric, but that the same thing applies to the author because a legate out in the field would only know the condition of his own legion, not all the other legions. Also, the legate was wounded during the Battle of the Red Ring, so he would have been in command after the Empire retook the IC, so he wouldn't have any idea what was going on. He would have to completely rely on Imperial generals to provide information.

But unlike Ulfric, Justianus DID take the time to interview the generals and legates that were there. He also researched what records that were available concerning before, during, and after. Who did Ulfric check with to get details of the Big Picture? Like-minded low-rankers that also felt the Empire gave up too easily? (If even those.) When it comes right down to it, Ulfric is little more than a "armchair quarterback", second-guessing the decisions of the people that were there, with little understanding of the context of how the final decision was arrived at. All he knows is that he didn't like the outcome of the game and is bragging about "If I was the one in charge...." how the outcome would have been sooooo much better.

 

It doesn't take as many troops to march in and burn all the cities in all the human provinces, and then repeat that every few years. It takes even less to march an army up to the Admantine Tower, which is the only tower left active that is responsible for holding NIRN together (unless you think the WG Tower was reactivated by Akatosh, but the Admantine Tower is still important).

You are totally, completely, and monumentally deluded. How well did that strategy work in Vietnam? In Iraq? Do you understand the logistical nightmare of mobilizing and moving an army through 100% hostile territory, just to do a slash-and-burn? Look at the aftermath for the British after the Battles of Lexington and Concord. The Brits had the might, they had the numbers, they had the professionalism, and they had the supply. But when all was said and done, they were thanking God that they made it back to Boston at all -- the ones that survived anyway. And if everything is being destroyed, how does the operation get paid for? The alternative of looting everything that isn't nailed down is just as bad because it takes time to loot, and the baggage train slows down movement, exposing the troops for longer, allowing the locals more opportunities to arrange ambushes and setting booby-traps. The troops assigned to the operation will have their Morale in the basement because they know that it doesn't benefit them or their families. And because they know that friends and comrades will be dying without the opportunity to strike back at any solid target. Fighting against a guerrilla war is never any fun.

 

What you are suggesting is conducting an ongoing war of genocide. But what happens when the lives of the victims become hopeless is that you end up fighting a cornered rat. "If you can't beat them, maul them as you go down." The AD would have to ask itself if destroying the Empire utterly would be worth sacrificing a quarter or more of its population? And for what? "They made a wasteland and called it peace."

 

The generals could have told him to write that the Empire couldn't continue instead of wouldn't continue, since the legate was writing a book that would be read widely, they wouldn't want people getting the idea that the Empire is full of cowards. Like you said, if generals told him that the Empire couldn't continue, why would he listen to a captive AD soldier, or a few soldiers (like Ulfric). We really need more than one book to make an accurate judgement about the Great War.

"Could have." "Might have." ALL of them. Do you peddle any other conspiracy theories?

 

Ulfric wouldn't know any more than the legate, but since he might have been a legate himself, or talked to his legate, he might know as much as his legate. Ulfric saying the Empire should have continued is the same as him saying the Empire could have continued.

Not a chance. The ONLY military command that is attributed to him anywhere is that of a commander of militia. Militia and regulars have seldom (if ever) been on friendly enough terms to swap military chitchat, much less grand strategic military info. The regular Military tend to think of militia as only being good for scouting, sacrificial units, and as step-and-fetch-its.

 

TMII might have wanted to retake the IC to get terms that wouldn't harm Cyrodil as much as it's provinces, or maybe he thought the AD was going to betray him after he signed a treaty and wanted to make them more cautious.

I think he was rather more interested in keeping his Capital city. Truces and armistices usually are framed as a ceasefire-in-place. Meaning that if he sued for peace before the BotRR, then more than likely the AD would have kept IC as part of the deal. So, take back the IC and _then_ sue for peace. Having destroyed the AD main army in Cyrodiil just had the benefit of being able to keep ALL of Cyrodiil.

 

While an attack on the AD is not a guaranteed victory, if the AD has the troops you claim it does then a surrender, or even a peace treaty that lets them weaken the Empire, is the equivalent of suicide. The AD will grow stronger while the Empire grows weaker, and by the time the second Great War starts the AD will roll through the Empire with ease. If you keep fighting, you have a chance, if you sign a treaty, you let them play their long game and they will slowly but surely destroy you.

Again, unclear on the concept. A truce, any truce, allows BOTH side to reform, regroup, and reinforce. And since it ended the war, it allows the Empire to rebuild. Given the scale of the Empire's total population, any reasonable period of no warfare, even if the Empire can't rebuild at the same rate, the numbers will still be respectable enough that a new AD invasion WILL be expensive.

 

Did you ever notice how it is that pretty much nation and empire has to mobilize for war? To call up the Reserves from their civilian lives, to stockpile armaments, to gather adequate rations to keep the armies fed? Just think how much faster a nation could go to war if those things were already in place and ready to go at a moments notice. Why do nations NEVER operate their Military that way? Because it's expensive is why. Ruinously expensive. Armies do not generate Revenue. All they do is constantly drain the Treasury, for zilch return on investment. So, for purely economic reasons, a nation doesn't start mobilizing until it knows it is going to war. The fraction of its full military might that remains on active duty is almost entirely for insurance purposes, as a Quick Reaction Force to stall an enemy invasion while the Reserves mobilize. Or possibly to exploit an opportunity that presents itself. So every time the AD would be calling up its armies to go scorch the Empire, there is a HUGE price tag that must be paid. And for what?

Edited September 14, 2015 by CaptainPatch

[kimmera]

 

 

 

 

@Kimmera

 

The generals could have told him to write that the Empire couldn't continue instead of wouldn't continue, since the legate was writing a book that would be read widely, they wouldn't want people getting the idea that the Empire is full of cowards. Like you said, if generals told him that the Empire couldn't continue, why would he listen to a captive AD soldier, or a few soldiers (like Ulfric). We really need more than one book to make an accurate judgement about the Great War.

 

Ulfric wouldn't know any more than the legate, but since he might have been a legate himself, or talked to his legate, he might know as much as his legate. Ulfric saying the Empire should have continued is the same as him saying the Empire could have continued.

 

TMII might have wanted to retake the IC to get terms that wouldn't harm Cyrodil as much as it's provinces, or maybe he thought the AD was going to betray him after he signed a treaty and wanted to make them more cautious.

 

While an attack on the AD is not a guaranteed victory, if the AD has the troops you claim it does then a surrender, or even a peace treaty that lets them weaken the Empire, is the equivalent of suicide. The AD will grow stronger while the Empire grows weaker, and by the time the second Great War starts the AD will roll through the Empire with ease. If you keep fighting, you have a chance, if you sign a treaty, you let them play their long game and they will slowly but surely destroy you.

 

That particular Legate talked to a lot of people, though. You are saying they all gave exactly the same information? And that despite Ulfric somehow knowing the truth just by looking, said Legate was not able to see just by looking that everyone they talked to was lying?

 

Meanwhile, Ulfric could also be making everything up. Or might be making nothing up in that Ulfric doesn't actually have any dialogue regarding the Empire's troop strength, current or at the end of the war. You are the one putting words in Ulfric's mouth that he may or may not believe. Saying that the Empire should have continued to fight doesn't say anything about his knowledge or lack thereof as to the Empire's ability to do so. Like you, he may have just making blind assumptions.

 

You know if the AD were going to betray the Empire, given the Empire's situation immediately after the battle, time to regroup given by the treaty would have been a good thing. Signing a treaty is not the same thing as dropping one's guard. "Wanting Cyrodiil to suffer less than the other provinces" sounds like you think the Empire wanted the other provinces to suffer. Cyrodiil, like Hammerfell was hit directly. Skyrim was not hit other than at the end by the Talos worship ban, and the evidence is that was not aggressively policed until after the Markarth Incident.

 

The Talos restriction might have weakened the Empire metaphysically (but frankly not so badly that there couldn't be another game in the franchise), but otherwise the Empire was only giving up ground it didn't hold at the time of the treaty signing. Why the hell would the AD agree to give captured land back without a fight?

 

Look, we really are just going in circles here. You just keep saying the same things, dismissing any evidence from the Empire, and making up unsubstantiated 'facts' you claim Ulfric 'knows.'

[Elimc]

@CaptainPatch

 

Legate Justianus interviewed "surviving soldiers and Imperial officers". There is no mention of him interviewing a general, or any legates who were advisers for generals. He might have just interviewed a few foot soldiers and some other legates from his legion, which wouldn't get him any information about the condition of the other 7. Ulfric might not have known much either, but I am really saying that we do not have enough information about this subject to make an informed decision.

 

The Empire doesn't have sharpshooters to hide in the woods while the AD marches up to the Admantine Tower, just archers, who can't fire while lying prone in cover. Also, making the Empire into a wasteland would be perfect from the AD's standpoint. So you are saying that the AD can't afford to defeat the Empire, but the Empire can't afford to fight the AD, so since this is the case why did the Emperor need to surrender? Couldn't they just have made a show of force along the border to scare the AD into giving up?

 

Or maybe the generals that he interviewed(who might not have existed) gave him a completely unbiased account of all the errors that they made.

 

Ulfric was a soldier in the legion during the Great War, his rank is left for us to guess, weather he was a private, a legate, or a militia commander helping out the legion without actually joining it.

 

But the second invasion will be less expensive than the first, and the third less expensive than the second, until they finally destroy the Empire.

 

So the AD has these massive amounts of reserves in place, not to mention the army in Hammerfell, and it still has the ability to keep fighting? While the war was fought on Imperial territory, the Empire has 4 provinces, 5 if you count morrowind, while the AD has 2, and 3 if you count Elswyr, which is merely a puppet of the AD, and might not be supplying troops. So even with half of Hammerfell and a third of Cyrodil destroyed, the Empire still has more resources than the AD. So it should be able to maintain a bigger army for a longer period of time.

 

@Kimmera

 

The legate talked to "surviving soldiers and Imperial officers". I don't know where we got him interviewing generals from, but it wasn't from the book. He talked to a few officers and foot soldiers, likely not enough people to gain an understanding of the Empire's whole situation. He probably would know how well his legion was doing, but I think it is a stretch to say he knew how well the whole Empire was doing.

 

Ulfric could be. Or he could just be wrong. But the same thing applies to the Great War. We just don't have enough information.

 

The Thalmor would have been in Skyrim sooner or later, a few years doesn't matter to them.

 

Why would the Empire sign away religious freedom of it's subjects when they have just finished killing every AD soldier in Cyrodil? Because they don't care about their subjects, as long as it happens far away and doesn't effect them.

 

We are going in circles because we don't have enough evidence, so all we can do is try to out speculate each other.

[kimmera]

Elimc, Generals are officers. Furthermore, the legate in question commanded the 10th Legion in Hammerfell and in Cyrodiil, so he would have had personal knowledge of the situation in Hammerfell up to the time Decianus was ordered to withdraw. As a Legion commander from Hammerfell, he would have reported to Decianus directly.

 

Furthermore, other Legion commanders were his peers, so why would he just go to bottom?

 

And they killed 'the main army in Cyrodiil' which is not the same as 'all forces in Cyrodiil.' In fact, if it was the only AD army in Cyrodiil, saying it was the 'main' army would have been redundant. 'Main' implies there are others.

 

"Out speculating each other" is pretty pointless, since you don't seem willing to agree on much of anything. You even reject any information source that disagrees with you. That leaves no basis for discussion.

[CaptainPatch]

We just don't have enough information.

I'm going to sum up this entire "debate" in an absolutely definitive way:

 

NOBODY KNOWS ANYTHING FOR CERTAIN ABOUT ANYTHING.

 

That should eliminate all of the "might haves", "could haves", "probablys", etc., et al.

 

And just for educational purposes: Scythian Horse Archers -- http://www.warriorsfortheworkingday.com/ScythianHorseman.htm

[MidbossVyers]

@CaptainPatch

 

Legate Justianus interviewed "surviving soldiers and Imperial officers". There is no mention of him interviewing a general, or any legates who were advisers for generals. He might have just interviewed a few foot soldiers and some other legates from his legion, which wouldn't get him any information about the condition of the other 7. Ulfric might not have known much either, but I am really saying that we do not have enough information about this subject to make an informed decision.

 

The Empire doesn't have sharpshooters to hide in the woods while the AD marches up to the Admantine Tower, just archers, who can't fire while lying prone in cover. Also, making the Empire into a wasteland would be perfect from the AD's standpoint. So you are saying that the AD can't afford to defeat the Empire, but the Empire can't afford to fight the AD, so since this is the case why did the Emperor need to surrender? Couldn't they just have made a show of force along the border to scare the AD into giving up?

 

Or maybe the generals that he interviewed(who might not have existed) gave him a completely unbiased account of all the errors that they made.

 

Ulfric was a soldier in the legion during the Great War, his rank is left for us to guess, weather he was a private, a legate, or a militia commander helping out the legion without actually joining it.

 

But the second invasion will be less expensive than the first, and the third less expensive than the second, until they finally destroy the Empire.

 

So the AD has these massive amounts of reserves in place, not to mention the army in Hammerfell, and it still has the ability to keep fighting? While the war was fought on Imperial territory, the Empire has 4 provinces, 5 if you count morrowind, while the AD has 2, and 3 if you count Elswyr, which is merely a puppet of the AD, and might not be supplying troops. So even with half of Hammerfell and a third of Cyrodil destroyed, the Empire still has more resources than the AD. So it should be able to maintain a bigger army for a longer period of time.

 

@Kimmera

 

The legate talked to "surviving soldiers and Imperial officers". I don't know where we got him interviewing generals from, but it wasn't from the book. He talked to a few officers and foot soldiers, likely not enough people to gain an understanding of the Empire's whole situation. He probably would know how well his legion was doing, but I think it is a stretch to say he knew how well the whole Empire was doing.

 

Ulfric could be. Or he could just be wrong. But the same thing applies to the Great War. We just don't have enough information.

 

The Thalmor would have been in Skyrim sooner or later, a few years doesn't matter to them.

 

Why would the Empire sign away religious freedom of it's subjects when they have just finished killing every AD soldier in Cyrodil? Because they don't care about their subjects, as long as it happens far away and doesn't effect them.

 

We are going in circles because we don't have enough evidence, so all we can do is try to out speculate each other.

I've found that, in historical battles, the only thing that determines victory definitively is victory. Going into the Battle of Red Cliffs, the Wei navy was clearly the stronger side, especially given that their enemies were described as "fugitives" and "country bumpkins". Wind changed direction, and the Wei offensive was literally sunk.

[fraquar]

Trying to rationalize why the Empire surrendered to the Thalmor the very terms they started the war refusing is like trying to rationalize away the fact the very people I'd be expected to fight for if I join the Imperials in Skyrim are the very people that were going to indiscriminately put me down - just to make a grand showing in front of Ulfric before they put him down. My life obviously meant 0 to them, and so it shall remain 0 to them - apparently, much like the lives of all those that were sacrificed for nothing in the Great War.

[Elimc]

@Kimmera

 

All generals are officers, but not all officers are generals. Just because he interviewed officers, doesn't mean he interviewed generals. He could have just interviewed a few of the captains under his command and it would still count as interviewing officers. Also, that sentence doesn't make sense, because legates don't command legions. Unless the Empire is organized into legions, which then are put into a grand legion under a general. But then the legate still wouldn't know about the condition of the other grand legions. We know of at least three or four, but I think there are more that didn't get mentioned.

 

They killed all the AD forces that were in the IC, all the AD forces who would come from Anvil and Kvatch, and all the AD forces nearby who tried to stop their advance into the IC. So maybe there are a few AD soldiers wandering around, but they are likely not a major force.

 

You also reject any information that disagrees with you, like all the evidence we have about Cyrodil falling apart, High Rock having one of it's main cities destroyed by pirates, and still say it will recover and defeat the AD.

[kimmera]

@Kimmera

 

All generals are officers, but not all officers are generals. Just because he interviewed officers, doesn't mean he interviewed generals. He could have just interviewed a few of the captains under his command and it would still count as interviewing officers. Also, that sentence doesn't make sense, because legates don't command legions. Unless the Empire is organized into legions, which then are put into a grand legion under a general. But then the legate still wouldn't know about the condition of the other grand legions. We know of at least three or four, but I think there are more that didn't get mentioned.

 

They killed all the AD forces that were in the IC, all the AD forces who would come from Anvil and Kvatch, and all the AD forces nearby who tried to stop their advance into the IC. So maybe there are a few AD soldiers wandering around, but they are likely not a major force.

 

You also reject any information that disagrees with you, like all the evidence we have about Cyrodil falling apart, High Rock having one of it's main cities destroyed by pirates, and still say it will recover and defeat the AD.

 

Just because he might have been an idiot does not mean he was an idiot. Legate is one step below General. He commanded a Legion, and thus interacted directly with Generals. Yes it is possible he didn't think to ask them anything but that seems very unlikely. Meanwhile asking his peers would give him a meaningful 'state of the army' report regardless.

 

How in blazes do you know what Legates command? There isn't any detail anywhere stating Legates don't command legions. Decianus likely had multiple legions within his command and had command of all Hammerfell forces. This particular Legate commanded the 10th Legion. Are you saying there are 10+ Generals in the Imperial Army? The Empire is pretty clearly patterned after the Romans. Roman military structure:

 

http://usna.edu/Users/history/abels/hh381/late_roman_barbarian_militaries_files/image007.jpg

 

I pointed out that the evidence of Cyrodiil 'falling apart' is single source, but that to the extent Cyrodiil really is falling apart, that provides evidence of a lack of Imperial troops, which backs the Emperor's decision. You for some reason seem to think Cyrodiil falling apart is some sort of proof that the Empire is strong enough to take on the AD, which makes no sense as a conclusion. As such, you even misrepresent even the evidence you present.

[Elimc]

@Kimmera

 

There is a difference between being an idiot and trying to make it seem like the Empire made the right choice in the Great War.

 

Cyrodil falling apart comes from Cicero, who has no reason at all to be biased, and Victoria who lives in solitude(forgot her last name).

 

Cyrodil's military strength at the end of the Great War wouldn't stop Cyrodil from falling apart ten years later