Imperial VS Stormcloak

[Anska]

Moody, there is one thing that has puzzled me since you corrected me about Talos founding the Empire a while back. In The Arcturian Hersey it reads "Cuhlecain, the King of Falkreath in West Cyrodiil, was in a bad situation." Do you know what made Falkreath become a part of Skyrim afterwards? The wiki wasn't very helpful in regards to that question and I thought you might know.

[Moody]

I just had a quick look and... I couldn't find anything about it - it seems it was part of the Kingdom of Colovia which encompassed the North West of Cyrodiil under the rule of Cuhlecain - it seems he reined in Falkreath and therefore could have been a Nord which knocks my other statement down :biggrin:

 

Actually I had missed a wiki article which covers the entire affair and my timeline was utterly wrong - http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Lore:Tiber_Wars

 

So it looks like Cuhlecain was only nominally Emperor - he died just before his coronation after seizing the Imperial city and Talos was crowned in his stead.

 

Talos had already been named "Dragon of the North" by the Nords by this point.

 

So Talos DID found the 3rd Empire and did so with a large force of Nord soldiers - I withdraw my previous statement - the Third empire did begin in Skyrim.

 

as for Falkreath - I guess since it is a border town it has switched hands between Skyrim and Cyrodiilic Kingdoms/Empires regulary

[RighthandofSithis]

I would agree Skyrim has played an important part in the founding and expansions of the Empires - a Kingmaker of sorts - but your statement was it "began" them - it didn't the origins of 2 (and possible all three) were always Cyrodiilic.

 

That was my point. I conceed on that part about Skyrim 'begining' the Empires. But it has always been an important foundation stone of them.

[SupremeEpicness]

Okay, I didn't read all the page of this topic but I've seen enough to know some people here are overlooking very important facts and disregarding logic.

Alot of people think that because the redguards could defeat the dominion the nords can too. The war with the redguards happened right after the dominion got out of a war with the empire (not to mention that the redguard are the most skilled warriors of tamiel). To believe the the nords can defeat the dominion after they just get out of a civil war is completely against logic. In the current state of tamriel no one can defeat the thalmor. The best bet would be to avoid war a long as possible. So anything to entice the thalmor to war is a bad idea.

 

What everyone seems to forget is the thalmor came to power because the people of the summerset ilses liked them after they said they ended the oblivion crisis. They came to power in valenwood because the people trusted them after they secretly plotted the coups that lead to the deaths of all the rightful leadership. In elsweyr they lied about ending the moon crisis so they would appear trust worthy. Then, when they started the coups that lead to the province breaking back into the kingdoms of anequina and pellitine, the thalmor could place themselves in a place of leadership in the province. My point is that the thalmor have domestic issues to deal with in order to ensure the stability of their own provinces. They wouldn't want the people to start coups or a civil war. They have to justify every thing they do (publicly) in the eyes of the people. So in order to justify a war with the empire they have to have a reason. The original thalmor ultimatum served the purpose. So they made a treaty they knew the empire couldn't sign. When the empire refused the thalmor's treaty, they could then justify a war in the eyes of their people. When the empire did sign the white gold concordant the thalmor could no longer justify the war in the eyes of the people. If they continued the war they would expose their true colors to the people and the empire.

 

The thalmor pose the greatest threat we've seen in the elder scrolls so far. They believe that the divines were angered by lorkhan's deceit. The divines that became mortal were used by auriel and trinimac to kill lorkhan. In his defence, lorkhan created humans at the throat of the world. Elves defeated humans in the first war of nirn and trinimac cut lorkhan to pieces. His body became the moon of nirn and his heart was tied to an arrow by auriel and launched to what would later become the red mountain. After that, humans fled to atamora. That's is the aldmeri creation story. The human version involves the divines simply becoming the ehlnofey, and the ehlnofey become all the other races of nirn.

My point is the thalmor believe that by ending the mortal cycle they can become immortal and erase humans from existence. The reason why is because elves descended from fallen aedra, while humans were simply created. Humans can't return to an immortal form because they never had one, while elves did. To end the mortal cycle the thalmor have to: erase talos from the imperial pantheon (done), kill as many humans as possible, and destroy the towers of nirn. The only known tower to still be active is the adamantine tower in the illiac bay.

While some believe that the threat the thalmor pose will force the nations of tamriel to ally against the thalmor, they sometime forget that the nations of tamriel don't know what the thalmor are up to so the nations of tamriel hate each other as much as they hate the thalmor.

 

Cyrodiil & Skyrim

The nords clearly hate the imperials. They see them as betraying the very one who founded them (talos). While the imperials see the nords as betraying talos by destroying the empire he spent his whole life trying to make.

 

Cyrodiil & Hammerfell

The imperials to my knowledge don't hate the redguards. The redguard feel betrayed by the empire after part of southern hammerfell were given to the dominion

 

Cyrodiil & Highrock

If the empire loses skyrim they will mostly likely lose Highrock as well. The only way to communicate would be by sea and in war times the thalmor could easily destroy ships going between the provinces.

 

Skyrim & Hammerfell

Both are appear xenophobic, but mainly the nords. It's highly unlikely that during a war they would ally, seeing as the thalmor would only appears as a threat to one at a time (why else would they divide if they don't conquer).

 

Skyrim & Highrock

The nords clearly have a problem of grouping good things with the bad things. They hate the dark elves because they are elves, and they hate elves because the thalmor are elves. needless to say it'll be a long time before the trust the bretons again, with this whole forsworn thing going on. So the nords hate the breton, but the breton don't hate the nords.

 

Hammerfell & Highrock

They've been fighting over the illiac bay for hundreds of years. I highly doubt they will ally if the other appears in danger.

 

The thalmor are based of the real world Nazis. the nazi saw they're own race as the most advance and tried to kill anyone they saw a lesser (mainly Jews). Now the thalmor see elves as the most advance race of nirn and they're trying to destroy any lesser race (mainly humans).

 

Imo the best way to handle the threat is to use the piece with the dominion to strengthen the human nations rather then to divide them by war and hate.

Remember the the Empire(as in Cyrodiil, Skyrim Highrock and Hammerfell) have one major advantage over the dominion. The Thalmor have to answer to the people. The people of the aldmeri dominion don't want war but the thalmor do. If the thalmor start a unjustifiable war with the empire they risk having a civil war in alinor. But if the thalmor can get the people to want war they will have no risks. The advantages the dominion has over the empire are: they are divided and they're unlikely to unite, they don't know the thalmor's plan and when the the thalmor do justify a war in the eyes of the citizens they can strike at any moment

Alone the nations stand no chance, but together they may be able to defeat the thalmor. Imo, I wouldn't risk breaking up the empire anymore until I'm sure it's the right move and the nations can reunite before a war

 

My conclusion is only a fool would try to fight or provoke the thalmor now when no one can defeat them. I would wait. Try to keep the thalmor from having approval of their citizen for a war as long as possible, and use the piece to rebuild.

 

With that information decide which is better stormcloaks or the empire.

 

p.s. sorry for my bad english, I'm half asleep right now

[MightyZ0G]

Ehm, Zog, please don't get me wrong, but you have just managed to confuse me completely. Are you saying that the Empire (in Tamriel) is currently in such a bad shape that it will probably get overrun either by an internal (e.g. a new Emperor) or an external force (e.g. the Thalmor), which afterwards will create a new empire from the ruins of the old one just under a new leadership?

 

I am just asking, because what you sketched out as a dynastic cycle above matches both the "spiral of collapse" and the "revolutionary situation" very nicely and it also is consistent with the current situation of Cyrodiil described by RightHandofSithis on the last two pages - all of which you seemed to disagree with before. So I am confused whether you changed your mind and I just didn't notice it or if I understood something utterly wrong.

 

I'm not saying that the Empire is beyond being saved.

I'm just pointing out that the spiral of collapse that RightHandofSithis is using as proof that the Empire is doomed isn't a spiral and that the "inevitable" collapse needn't happen.

 

RHoS said that this spiral started back in the early days of the Colovian Empire which is incorrect.

 

there were dynastic cycles.

the term spiral suggests that the situation continually gets worse, and the way that RHoS used it suggests that the time of Man in Tamriel is over (which could possibly be the case if the Empire is divided), but as shown by the Dynastic Cycle, Emperors and Dynasties come and go but Empires endure.

 

Titus Mede took control of the Empire during a "warring states" period.

the warring states period that the Empire is facing now might not be as bad as 500 years of conflict if a new Emperor is waiting in the wings ready to take control (which often happened in the Dynastic Cycle as there was often an overlap between the end of one dynasty and the start of another) and with the Mottierres in High Rock having a claim on the Imperial throne and TMII being assassinated, the Imperial forces are quite likely to join ranks behind the first strong leader who has a plan for the future rather than remain headless with the Thalmor still a threat on their borders.

 

the ridiculous thing is that if Ulfric hadn't started a war against the Empire, he could have made a rightfull claim to the throne of Skyrim and then made a claim on the Empire, but he has been shortsighted (possibly because he was brainwashed by the Thalmor) and has weakened the Empire when he could have strengthened it against the common threat.

 

personally I think that a united empire has a better chance against the Thalmor.

the only reason that the Thalmor were unable to take Hammerfell is because they too were weakened by the Great War.

if they had managed to divide the Empire before and then had attacked each lone province 1 at a time, they might have managed to conquer all of Tamriel already, but the Empire was united and fought the Thalmor to a standstill.

[Anska]

Thank you Moody. I wonder, if Falkreath apparently isn't a "traditional" Skyrim-Hold or at least one, that has swapped owners a couple of times, what about Riften? It is a hold close to the border too.

 

I haven't understood the spiral as a sign that "the time of Man in Tamriel is over ", only in the way, that the time of the current Empire is over. The Empire is currently weakened, has problem to keep its provinces peaceful and has other internal problems (as suggested by someone trying to kill the Emperor to rise in social standing). It will probably get smaller and either manages to restructure itself or it gets sacked by one of the adjacent countries. That doesn't mean the time of man is over, it just means the time of the empire as we currently know it is over - much like many other Empires fell or transformed in our history. That spiral isn't about the end of the world, just about the end of a specific state/ government/ ruling dynasty etc.

[MightyZ0G]

unless the Empire stays united, the adjacent province that invades and takes control will be Summerset Isle and, as we all know, the Thalmor don't really like men that much.

[Moody]

Thank you Moody. I wonder, if Falkreath apparently isn't a "traditional" Skyrim-Hold or at least one, that has swapped owners a couple of times, what about Riften? It is a hold close to the border too.

 

I haven't understood the spiral as a sign that "the time of Man in Tamriel is over ", only in the way, that the time of the current Empire is over. The Empire is currently weakened, has problem to keep its provinces peaceful and has other internal problems (as suggested by someone trying to kill the Emperor to rise in social standing). It will probably get smaller and either manages to restructure itself or it gets sacked by one of the adjacent countries. That doesn't mean the time of man is over, it just means the time of the empire as we currently know it is over - much like many other Empires fell or transformed in our history. That spiral isn't about the end of the world, just about the end of a specific state/ government/ ruling dynasty etc.

 

A cursory glance shows Riften has always been part of Skyrim and (apparently) always highly associated with the Thieves guild.

[Monkinsane]

I know how many threads have been released over numerous sites about this, and personally I hate that I'm making another one about it... yet none of the responses so far has given me a solid reason to help end the civil war siding with one or another (in fact it made it worse), I'm playing as a redguard.

 

The Imperial legion is indeed, a shadow of its former self. The emperor is a fake, and a weakling, not to mention he is not dragonborn. They are puppets of the Altmer, yet at the same time they want a united Empire against the Altmer. Still I believe a people should govern itself, unity is one thing, imperialism is another.

 

Then we have the stormcloaks, a bunch of racist bigots with a leader who I don't even particularly like. Not to mention siding with them risks the Thalmor overruning Skyrim while it is weak. Still, it IS Skyrim, the land of the nords, and they refuse oppression, and hammerfell also revolted against the empire and held their own... making the stormcloaks a viable choice for my redguard.

 

But my redguard dislikes how elves are treated ingame by the stormcloaks... ARGH... I have to say this has been the hardest decision I had to make in a game. I need your help, please post your opinions! And help convince me to side one or the other!

 

My choice was simple,

 

I play a High Elf Mage, and those damned imperials tried to execute me! Storcloaks helped me escape - so I sided with the stormcloaks. I see my own people (The Thalmor) as obnoxious oppressors who want nothing but total world domination, and are racist even towards their own people. The Imperials are spineless cowards who submitted to Thalmor rule.

 

The stormcloaks, while being a bit racist themselves - are the only sane choice. You can understand their reason for being so - their land was invaded by the Imperials at the Thalmor's command. Their freedom to worship their God has been outlawed under pain of death by the Thalmor. The Thalmor kidnap and torture their people. If I was a Nord, I'd be racist too! LOL

 

 

[Monkinsane]

Come to think of it, the stormcloaks will defeat the Damn Aldumeri Dominion - They've got the dragonborn on their side. Lets see the ALdumeri defeat the one who defeated the World-Eater (Which the entire Tamriel with all its armies couldn't do, apperently). If the dragonborn can stop the end of all things, then NO-ONE is a match for him.

 

Muhahahaha, I'm going to RULE THE WORLD!!! Do as I command my Minions! :P

Edited May 7, 2013 by Monkinsane