Join Empire or Stormcloaks? My Thoughts

[pgir001]

 

This is where I would say a New Empire, or a new strength for the old should be born out of Skyrim once again. And the 4E Dragonborn has the strength to lead it.

The LDB is a non issue. He won't be around to do jack squat. History demands that heroes dissappear. It's one of the underlying themes of TES. Heroes exist to make a decision, they don't get to live in the worlds they save.

 

The Dragonborn's story ended with Miraak.The story of Tamriel's future belongs to someone else.

 

Yes, I do realize that's been TES history. To open the way from one game to the next. I suppose it would depend on when TES VI takes place. But leaping ahead to then, I would not expect the LDB to still be floating around somewhere. But that's only because TES VI can't make any assumptions. So, Bethesda can only go with what they know, which is the TES V's content. So, nothing more than what they did in TES V can be mentioned in "history". But that still leaves a gap where anything can happen. But yeah, I get that it can't be enough to "make history" from here. But in this regard, the same thing applies to all the characters. Ulfric, Tullius, Elisif. In the future of Tamriel, there could be a reference to "Skyrim's High King" But we probably won't know who that is. be it one of the Jarls or even if it would be the LDB.

Edited December 27, 2015 by pgir001

[CaptainPatch]

The LDB is a non issue. He won't be around to do jack squat. History demands that heroes dissappear. It's one of the underlying themes of TES. Heroes exist to make a decision, they don't get to live in the worlds they save.

That's something of an overstatement. In Tamriel's history, there have been plenty of "heroes". (The quotes is because "hero" is defined by the victors for which the hero was battling. The losers would probably be using a different label.) Ysgramor. Tiber Septim. Others I can't think of off the top of my head. It would be more accurate to say that player characters won't be around to do jack squat. Mainly because it would be impossible for the devs to predict and plan for the myriad of different outcomes that millions of players would create. Safer to just advance the calendar to a time beyond the expected lifespan of the heroic player characters and create a generic history to fill the intervening chronology. A timeline that writes the player character into the background.

[Lachdonin]

Hero is something different in TES than anyone who is simply a heroic individual (to whatever side he was on). Hero is a mythic concept, a mantle ascribed to someone who fits into a Prophecy cynic as the deciding player. To quote Zurin Arctus:

 

Each Event is preceded by Prophecy. But without a Hero, there is no Event.

 

Ysgramor, Alessia, Talos, Reman, Hunding... They were all heroic figures, and most of them were Shezzarines, but they were not Heroes. At least not with a capital H.

 

Their disappearance is also an established element of the Lore. Ancient Heroes, such as Hans the Fox, are noted to have vanished, and we know that The Agent. The Nerevarine and the Hero of Kavatch disappeared shortly after their prophecies were fulfilled.

Edited December 28, 2015 by Lachdonin

[Moksha8088]

Seems like it would take the eventual persuasion of Ulfric's Skyrim to eventually encourage the Empire to stand up to the Aldmeri Dominion and no longer permit the Justiciars to march their Nord prisoners all over Skyrim.

[Lachdonin]

Seems like it would take the eventual persuasion of Ulfric's Skyrim to eventually encourage the Empire to stand up to the Aldmeri Dominion and no longer permit the Justiciars to march their Nord prisoners all over Skyrim.

 

Except the Empire is already standing up to the Dominion. The Justicars are a minor issue, and don't in any way negate the fact that the Legion is readying for war.

[CaptainPatch]

Hero is something different in TES than anyone who is simply a heroic individual (to whatever side he was on). Hero is a mythic concept, a mantle ascribed to someone who fits into a Prophecy cynic as the deciding player. To quote Zurin Arctus:

 

Each Event is preceded by Prophecy. But without a Hero, there is no Event.

Sounds like a literally "self-fulfilling prophecy". "That may be the way the word is usually defined, but in our case we are defining the word this way." What if they were even more restrictive in the way they prefer to define the term? "The Hero MUST be male." (A female would be a "heroine" after all.) "The Hero MUST be Human." (So much for Argonians, Khajit, or any flavor of Mer.) Maybe narrow the field by limiting just what age the prospective Hero MUST be.

 

"Truth is whatever the Prophet says it is. If you don't like his version of the Truth, go find yourself a different Prophet."

[Elimc]

 

But the Empire has been occupied by the AD, with most of it's cities being captured.

A point of order: Three cities in Hammerfell and most of the cities in Cyrodiil were occupied NO cities in Highrock or Skyrim were occupied by the AD. That means that "most of the cities of the Empire were occupied" is an overstatement.

Sorry, I meant Cyrodil, not the Empire.

 

 

Entire cities are being destroyed by bandits and drug lords,

Which illuminates that it is men fighting men that gives the Mer any hope of success. Movements that create divisions within the Empire is what is weakening Man in its confrontation with Mer.

 

How you contend that it would be more advantageous for PART of the forces of Man will prevail against the Mer in the long run while at the same time saying ALL the forces unified in the Empire is doomed to failure defies logic. Or are you suggesting that Man is entirely doomed to failure anyway, so it is morally better for the Nords to lose united under their own independent banner? "Better to die as Nords than to die as Imperial lackeys!" Dead is dead. The net effect would be the Mer ascendant and what remains of Mankind subjugated.

In Rome, when the city of Rome was being overwhelmed by barbarians, Byzantium was much better off on its own then it would have been if it had tried to keep Rome safe. So just because the Men would have greater numbers if they stayed united under the Empire, doesn't mean they would be more effective in a war with the AD.

 

 

Anyway, Cicero's Journals aren't really that enlightening. Because... Well, riots aren't that uncommon in post-War nations, and criminals also have a tendency to capitalise on a distracted government regardless of the cause. Riots also aren't generally good indicators of national or municipal stability, at least in pre-modern societies. Riots were quite common in Industrial London and France, as were Gang Wars. The Riots mentioned in Cicero's journal sound very severe, and they seem to be happening everywhere "Cheydinhal as erupted into violence and chaos, like so many other cities before it."

 

Thinking about it... The destruction of the Sanctuaries is also rather suspicious... These are hideouts that have survived thousands of years, the Interregnum, multiple attempts at extermination, and the Age of Misrule... But they get breached and the Brotherhood gets almost wiped out by angry pesants? Something's not right there...Maybe thats because the you can't bribe angry peasents. The Dark Brotherhood really aren't really warriors, they are better at sneaking than fighting, so in open combat they could be overwhelmed.

 

We then have to compare what Cicero depicts to what else we get of the state of the Empire. We know they have recouped virtually all financial losses because they try to buy Balgruf's support. Or maybe they were using the some gold to prevent a rebellion. They could do that even if they were very poor. We know their production is of sufficient quantity to export enough foodstuffs to make Skyrim at least partially dependant on them. We know they export food and wine, but the quantity is uncertain. Sybille could just be saying that the people of Solitude like the fancy food from Cyrodil more than Nordic foods. We know the Thalmor are concerned about their troop buildup, and that the Legion considers its self ready for a new war. The Thalmor are concerned about their troop buildup, but I think that Cyrodil is falling apart so that that won't be an issue in a few years. We also know that it's stable enough that the Emperor can move about freely, even visiting a province in OPEN REBELLION (something even the Septims were hesitant to do, though there is some indication that Mede may have had a hand in his own execution).

 

Even if you take Cicero's Journals at face value, all they indicate in context with everything else is that the Empire is slowly recovering, rather than quickly. And it's still quick enough to alarm the Thalmor and the Dominion, who are willing to risk outright intervention to ensure the Stormcloaks don't lose. Or they indicate that the Empire is falling into chaos, and will never recover. We don't have enough information to tell witch one is true.

 

[CaptainPatch]

In Rome, when the city of Rome was being overwhelmed by barbarians, Byzantium was much better off on its own then it would have been if it had tried to keep Rome safe. So just because the Men would have greater numbers if they stayed united under the Empire, doesn't mean they would be more effective in a war with the AD.

The two situations are not at all analogous. Prior to the Fall of Rome, the Roman Empire had already split into two distinctly different empires, East and West, quite a while earlier. The incursions of the barbarian tribes into the Western empire only had to contend with the forces -- and poor leadership -- of the Western empire. Had the Empire still been unified under the much more dynamic leadership of the Eastern empire, there is a strong likelihood that they would have been repulsed and trounced. But that surmise is a Might-Have-Been to which we will never know the answer. To have the Eastern leadership in control would have required yet another Roman civil war. And such a civil war would have undoubtedly left the re-unified Empire weaker. Perhaps so weak that it would have made even the recombined empire vulnerable to the barbarian incursions.

[Elimc]

Rome was not considered two separate countries, it was just governed in two places because one Emperor could not control all of it. They were still separate, but they became farther apart as the Western Empire lost its land to barbarians. Earlier, the East had been helping them out. So I would say that these situations are still analogous.

[CaptainPatch]

There are two ways to look at the Fall of the Roman Empire: Either as two distinct entities, East and West, with the West falling relatively soon after the split. (Split 395 A.D., and West falls in 476 A.D.) The East remains and becomes Byzantium, which in its turn, doesn't fall until 1453 A.D. Viewed as being still a single entity, then it is one where half the body gets diseased and then eventually amputated to save what remains. The two entity version is MUCH more practical because while termed "co-emperors", they did NOT jointly rule over the same real estate. The Western emperor rule his area his way and the Eastern emperor ruled over his area his way. "Help" provided by the Eastern empire actually boiled down to grabbing Western real estate and transferring control to the Eastern empire.

 

The primary reason that the West fell is because unlike the East, it experienced numerous migrations of barbarians and couldn't assimilate them fast enough. In effect, the Roman sociological and cultural influence was rapidly and drastically "diluted". At the fall of the West, the greater majority of its citizens did NOT see themselves as being "Roman". Rather, most still saw themselves as being primarily members of whatever Germanic tribe they were born into. The Western Romans could not rally a defense of the Roman "Motherland" or "Fatherland" or anything of the kind of "we-ness versus them" patriotic fervor that earlier Roman leaders could invoke.

 

And note that at the sequence of events that led to the West's final collapse, there wasn't any move from the East to help forestall that outcome. Rather, the East's response was to grab some Western real estate that bordered on Eastern real estate. That pretty much illustrates that at that time (and for quite awhile before) the East and West rulers saw themselves as being two distinctly different political entities.

 

*****

Distinctly different from the situation in Tamriel, the Western Roman Empire did NOT fall to the concerted efforts of just ONE opponent. Rather, it was eroded by one adversary after another after another after .... Further, none of those adversaries threatened the East in any meaningful way. Rather, the East eventually fell to an opponent that didn't even exist until after the West was long dead and gone. This is sooooo different because the same opponent to the Empire also has designs on Skyrim. And if that foe is mighty enough to bring down the Empire, how difficult would it be to then finish off ityy-bitty Skyrim?

Edited December 31, 2015 by CaptainPatch