Having returned to Skyrim a bit lately, I've been considering the alliance between Cyrodiil and Skyrim in the 3rd Empire. While not going into great detail right now, we have characters like Balgruuf and Rikke who plays off Skyrim as really important to the Empire, and we see a response to the rebellion in Skyrim from the Mede Dynasty unlike what we can see happened in the other provinces that left.

So, my question is this: How important do you think the Cyrodiil/Skyrim alliance to the Empire?

it wouldn't realistically happen, in an Ulfric victor scenario, so much [censored] just went down Skyrim is just as much a political enemy as the dominion is (if not more so)..



let me put it like this:


lets take the province of Quebec, lets say an armed militant faction rose in it, killed the premier and his entire cabinet, killed the primeminister as he was flying through an airport, killed the commanding officer of every military base in the province, and went "hey, this lands ours now gtfo! long live the glorious Kingdom of Quebec!"..


do you think Canadas only reaction would be "ohh okay.. want to sign a trade agreement then?"





it may have been feasible if Ulfric had tried to gain independence via non-hostile means (a petition to the Elder Council as an example), but the way Ulfric went about it is by declaring himself and his supporters an enemy of the empire, he just killed one of their most decorated officers and a loyalist king, its not just some minor border skirmish that can be easily forgiven..



the High King was killed by Ulfrics hands in an act of regicide, the highest ranked military officer was killed by his hand, and the emperor suddenly died within the provinces borders (and since the pentius whatever there called just declared the DB dead, the Stormcloaks will take the rap).. all those events piled on top of another make Ulfrics Skyrim just as much the empires enemy as the dominion if not more so..




any chance at an alliance went down the drain when Ulfric decided the gain his independence via violence, rather than diplomacy..

I should perhaps have made myself more clear: I am not talking about an alliance between the Empire and the Stormcloaks. I am specifically talking about the importance of the Cyrodiil/Skyrim alliance that has stood for most of the history of the 3rd Empire, ever since Tiber Septim gained the Nords' allegiance.

ah, i must have misinterpreted, i apologize..



in all honesty, they really did need each other.. on one hand, Nords always did have a history of service to the empire, but at the same time with Skyrims environment they really did need the access the resources not available within its lands that the empire brought in..

There is no alliance Skyrim is part of the empire and the reason the Empire is responding is that more than half of Skyrim does not want to leave the empire.It is different to Morrowind which was not worth the effort .Valenwood and Elsweyr left due to military uprisings(and joined the AD)and Hammerfell had to leave to not ruin the peace treaty.

If it was simply that, why no known interference in Hammerfell prior to the Great War? Why not try to retake Valenwood, which was couped by the Thalmor? Indeed, why spend resources keeping Skyrim at all with the Dominion on the southern border?

Maybe I'm cynical, but I don't believe that an Empire, or a nation for that part, are capable of self-sacrifice in this way. Maybe in peaceful, prosperous times, but not when a very real, very dangerous enemy lies on the southern border. So why intervene in Skyrim?

Skyrim is a really important part of the Empire.

For one thing, it is of immense strategic importance. Skyrim connects the Empire to its last major holding abroad in High Rock. It also serves as a fertile recruiting ground for the Legion.

Skyrim also holds great symbolic importance to the the Empire. Cyrodiil and Skyrim have a long history together, stretching back to the time that Morihaus (for which Morthal is named) led Nordic fighters into Cyrodiil to aid with Alessia's rebellion against the Ayleids. But myth carries this ancient relationship back even further. Among Cyrodiils Skyrim is revered as home of all men (save Redguards) in Tamriel and the site of the First Empire of Men which ushered in an age of dominance over elvenkind. If anything Cyrodiils have come to see themselves as children of Skyrim in much the same way that the later kingdoms and empires of Europe saw themselves as a continuation of Roman civilization.

With the establishment of the Third Empire, Tiber Septim used Skyrim's revered status in Cyrodiil to establish his legitimacy over the Imperial Province. He claimed Nordic heritage, glorified Skyrim as The Fatherland, and used his Dragonborn status to prove his divine right to the Cyrodiilic throne. Later, when the Medes came to power, Titus Mede I relied on Skyrim's support to legitimize his claim to the Ruby Throne after he seized it in a bloody coup. In a very real sense the Empire's legitimacy to rule over mankind rests on the back of Skyrim. Without Skyrim's support, why should men anywhere submit to the emperor?

I should note that Skyrim's own relationship with Cyrodiil is seen quite differently by the Nords. They don't typically see themselves as the homeland for humankind and have generally seen Imperials as unwanted meddlers in their own affairs since the days of the 1st Cyrodiilic Empire. They've long been suspicious of Imperial religion and closely guarded of their own liberty. None-the-less they have often found common cause with the Imperials against the elves and have benefited from the unity and prosperity brought by the Cyrodiils to a normally fractious and isolated country.

Beacause the Empire did not want to start a war.And the emperor thought they weren't ready.Yes they should have but it's different from Skyrim which has a civil war since a lot of people do not want to leave.

Manpower.A lot of the empires troops in Skyrim are actually local recruits.

Both the First and Third Empires were founded in part because because they had Skyrim as their strong arm. The Ayleids were beleaguered by their infighting and a slave uprising, but the Nords being in league with the revolting slaves is what cinched the beginning of their end. And the Nords being wowed by Tiber Septim is what made the Battle of Sancre Tor so pivotal.

The Alessian Empire also started collapsing when King Wulfharth said "F This" to the Marukh-twisted Alessian doctrine. So you can see why the Empire in TES5's time is rather keen on holding on to Skyrim.

If Cyrodiil is the heart of the Empire, Skyrim is the strong arm.

Something I have to ask about here, as it seems to be a common underlying assumption in both these comments: Why is prosperity "brought by the Cyrodiils"?

Don't get me wrong, I don't think there has been a disadvantage in trading with Cyrodiil for Skyrim, but the land was able to stand long before this was even a possibility, as the Nords settled it in the Merethic Era. Indeed, much of the early days of the Nords in Tamriel(at least after the Return) was spent fairly isolated within Skyrim's borders(before they began to expand) and it does not seem to have lacked in resources. Even looking at Skyrim as we see it now, we see a lot of mines, forests, wild game and the Nords have traditions for farming even in the cold land around Windhelm itself. And both Solitude and Windhelm seem to be heavily invested in trade by sea. The Nords was described as "enterprising in trade" as far back as Morrowind and we see that in action a little in Oblivion(f.ex. the Nord shipsmaster in Anvil) and quite a lot in Skyrim(Erikur, the Silver-Bloods, the Battle-Borns[farming], Snow-Shods, the Black-Briars and so on).

Another thing I have to ask about is this charge of being fractured. Again, don't get me wrong, the Nords are as capable of infighting as anyone else(well, perhaps not as much as the Bretons, come to think of it), but there does not seem to be that significant on the larger scale of their history. There was the War of Succession, then in the 2nd Era Skyrim was for a time, in fact, 2 kingdoms(West/East) and there are things like the Stormfist Rebellion, but they seem to have remained fairly stable. Maybe there are just sources I've missed, but this charge of being fractured seem to be more applicable to the Imperials when they are not united under a strong Emperor. Heck, the Alessian Empire didn't even control the Colovian Estates.

It all started with Nords and Imperials (specifically Colovians) fighting alongside- that was what Hjalti's original army consisted of.

Going back even further, Skyrim and Cyrodiil historically had some level of cohesion with one another, with Skyrim assisting in Alessia's revolt. Not too surprising, since it means they can stomp on elves, but there you go.

Historically, Skyrim is. Things only go down hill when there's a succession crisis, which is basically what brought the Nordic Empire down and what's happening with the Stormcloak rebellion. That's not to say the other Holds haven't warred with one another before, but it seems to be mostly on a scale that doesn't really shake things up too much most of the time. Given how comfortable Nord's are with the prospect of war in the first place, not that surprising.

Tomatoes come from Cyrodiil, which the Nords need to make horker meat taste good. /thread

Really, though, Cyrodiil offers quite a few benefits. A stable, continent-wide currency is the biggest benefit to commerce imaginable. That coupled with safe trade routes by land and sea (thanks to the legions, who also do police work) means huge boons to investment and the steady movement of food and other resources. The sharing of information and techniques made possible by a united Mages Guild was an incredible advantage as well. That's why levitation and teleportation were so widespread once upon a time. At peak unity, it was common for mages to move through physical objects like fences and even brick walls.

Skyrim is the reason Cyrodiil achieved and maintained military dominance in all three of its empires. The rows and rows of fresh-faced Nordic soldiers brought every other province into line, excepting the Altmer in Tiber's time, and the Argonians, who don't really count. Without Skyrim, the logistics of taking control of and holding on to High Rock would have been a nightmare. Without Skyrim, Vivec wouldn't have felt compelled to make a deal, which means the Dominion wouldn't have fallen apart.

So Cyrodiil might have taken over Elsweyr. But could they have without Wulfharth?

I'm not saying Cyrodiil wasn't a very powerful thing on its own. But their population probably doubles when they can recruit from Skyrim (and therefore from High Rock). Their economic, academic, magic, social and military organization is what makes made Tamriel work, but they wouldn't have been able to implement that system without the Nords.

Oh lord, imagine the taste without...

To argue a point here: Nothing about that is specific to the Imperials. It is the result of a unified Tamriel, though, with the history of the Empire, how safe the roads generally were is perhaps overplayed


And, like you point out next, the unification seems to have been based on Cyrodiil and Skyrim working together. So, again: "Why is prosperity brought by the Cyrodiils?" Strikes me as the case that prosperity came to both by working together more than one "giving it" to the other.

Curiously, I don't think this is entirely true for the Reman Dynasty(maybe under the Potentates). The Akaviri Dragonguard cut its way through Morrowind and eastern Skyrim before becoming subject to the foul temper of the Jeralls and surrendering to Reman the Dragonborn as that was their purpose in Tamriel. Reman, in turn, used the Akaviri to establish his dominance over Tamriel. Though it is said in the PGE 1st Edition that Reman found himself "responsible for the northern kingdoms at large" by the end of the war, so he probably did unite with the Nords against the Akavir. But, like I said, I think the Akavir were much more important in establishing the dominance of the Reman Dynasty.

If unity is good for prosperity, the one who causes unification brings prosperity. I think that's a truism.

The reason why it is the Cyrods is because nobody else can do it. The Dunmer aren't starting any continent-spanning empires any time soon. The Khajiit, Bretons, Redguards and Argonians aren't in it to win it either.

The Nords could conceivably conquer Tamriel, but only if they had Cyrodiilic support, in the same way that Cyrodiilic Imperial rule has always had Nordic support. I'm pretty sure this would amount to the same thing, given the immense sway that Nibenay has, and the sheer idiocy of maintaining an imperial capital in a Nordic city. They're not centrally located and they don't have the Tower. Influence would shift back southwards by the law of cultural gravity.

The alternative for unification is Altmeri rule with Bosmeri support (the Altmer supporting the Bosmer would never happen), and that would lead to genocide.

So Cyro-Nordic it is.

My point went to the seemingly underlying assumption in comments I originally quoted, which implied that the Imperials, in a sense, "gave" prosperity to the Nords, while I think that the cooperation between them is what brought both prosperity.

But, on the point you made for the shift automatically falling towards the Imperial City(I think it is fair to say that the IC, rather than Cyrodiil as a whole, given what the Counts in Cyrodiil talk about in Oblivion. The Counties seem to be somewhat similar in status to provintial kingdoms), would that continue now? Part of the prophecy of the return of Alduin is that the "White Tower falls" and the Thalmor supposedly did some damage to the White-Gold in the Great War, so doesn't that mean that the Imperial City has lost its "tower influence"?

Indeed, with the rise of the Dominion and the Nords' ancient role in standing against the elves, I could conceive of Skyrim becoming the new center of Lorkhan aligned humans. Just speculation that point though.

The Marukhati did something to Akatosh and changed history; Cyrodiil became "an empire across the stars" during the Middle Dawn, in the same way that the Tribunal became gods during the Red Moment. When the Amulet was destroyed, I think Cyrodiil's divinity was cut off the same way the Tribunal's was when the Heart disappeared.

Now the Tower is like a gun with no bullets. It's still powerful, but somebody that knows what they're doing has to get their hands on it.

So I expect the Nords to take power in northern Tamriel, and for the Thalmor to maintain power for some time.

Did they? Or did the Jills mend the damage after the Dragon Break ended?

The Nords have gone from seeing Akatosh as Alduin to seeing both http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Lore:The_Alduin/Akatosh_Dichotomy, so something has changed, I'd say.

Strictly speaking, the Nords were supposed to view the idea of worshiping a dragon of any type as a bad idea, which makes sense given their history. And the lack of Akatosh having relevancy in Skyrim outside of some quips with the Greybeards...not really? Skyrim, like Oblivion, was pretty bad about handling religion on the whole. It was just more non-existent in Skyrim then previously.

I agree, there is nothing supporting that Akatosh is a major deity in Skyrim, but my point was that the lore used to be that Alduin used to be the Nordic Akatosh, while now Akatosh and Alduin are seperate entities. Maybe this is a theological misunderstanding by non-Nords in previous games(like I think we can retcon the relationship between the temple of Talos and the Nords in Bruma to be, since we've known since Morrowind that the Cult to Tiber Septim has roots as a Nordic Hero Cult), or maybe this is something that came as a result of Akatosh himself changing while the "World Eater" aspect being trapped in the future, essentially "making another Akatosh" in the eyes of the Nords.