Well, he obviously loves Skyrim and its people but forgets something. The empire keep The Thalmor away. If Skyrim is to be independent from The empire, The post war state of The region would be a playing ground for the Thalmor to seize control. I think Ulfric believes that the nords can keep away the Thalmor, but, hey, Four mages using fireball could kill more than ten steel armed men. The only way to deal with the Thalmor is through politics.

Honestly Ulfric just believes in an independent Skyrim. When in all honesty Skyrim is not strong enough to stand alone against anyone especially the Thalmor. What Ulfric should be doing is putting his big boy pants on and be a man. Instead of fighting the Empire he should be allying himself with them for that is the only way Skyrim can survive you are right in the aspect that the Thalmor stay away from open conflict because they are using the Empire to do that instead but nothing is really stopping the Thalmor from ruling all of Tamriel. They nearly obliterated the greatest military force in the world. I think they can take some angry cabbage farming vikings and the empty husk of the greatest military force in the world.

Ulfric is a Racist. Untrue to the old ways of the Ebonheart Pact.

Perhaps you've missed it somehow, but the Thalmor are all over. The Empire has done a piss poor job of "keeping the Thalmor away." In fact, they've failed miserably at it.

This is not to say I like Ulfric or his Stormclucks. What is needed is an empire and an emperor with the balls to stand up and fight the Thalmor to the end, and not cave in when they're on the verge of victory.

Basically what I'm saying is that the Empire has grown weak and needs to find it's backbone, because right now they are spineless wimps.

People need to open their eyes and see that the empire is a shell of its former self. It can't even keep its own emperor safe.

Ulfric may not be perfect. He may have his own agenda. But he knows what is best for Skyrim. He was there during the great war. He was there when the war ended. He was there when the divine of his people was stripped away in order for "peace." What peace? You have already lost to the enemy when you give up your culture and religion. And what did the empire do? It betrayed him at Markarth. It allowed the thalmor to set up bases in Skyrim and pretty much do as they pleased. He watched as the empire stood by doing absolutely nothing as the thalmor took nords as prisoners and killed them.

Does that sound like an empire you want to be a part of?

And people forget, Ulfric had alliances with other provinces. AND just because Skyrim won its freedom from the empire it doesn't mean it will face the thalmor alone. No Ulfric has full intention of focusing on building defenses in Skyrim against the thalmor. And his troops will be marching to war along side the empire to defeat the thalmor.

And all this talk of Ulfric is racist and just wanted to be High King is rubbish. There is no proof he is racist despite how some of the Windhelm citizens act. He opened Windhelm to the dunmer and the argonians. heck there are even altmer living in peace in his city. As for the High King bit, he says he is leaving that to the moot. Sure all the jarls support him but so what? If you win the civil war then all the jarls support Elisif as High Queen, does that mean her agenda the whole time was to have her husband killed so she could then take the crown?

maybe.

One key thing to note with Skyrim separated from the empire and that is the thalmor foothold in the province is lost. All the forts are garrisoned with stormcloaks. If the empire wins, the thalmor keep their foot hold in Skyrim. Does that sound like something your ok with? If anything Skyrim is stronger without the empire because it no longer has a thalmor presence waiting to strike from the heart of it when war begins again. You really think the thalmor will return home when the war begins? Nope, an empire controlled Skyrim is a win for the thalmor. They already occupy the province.

Yeah, what Resident_Within said, Ulfric is not an isolationist. He will without a doubt march with the Empire into war, and he could even offer to help the Redguards and march a decent amount of his troops through Hammerfell to the Dominion's borders, bolstered by the Redguard armies. He could even set his fleets for High Rock and rally the Bretons into joining his cause, or at least letting him use Daggerfall/Wayrest as launching points for his naval forces.

Still it comes down to the fact that it doesn't matter about Ulfric because if the Empire could not defeat that Thalmor then how could Ulfric even imagine doing so. The Thalmor are a huge a powerful force that rules much of Tamriel or is attempting to by time Skyrim rolls around. It would take a massive army the size of the old Empire to even consider taking on the Thalmor and surviving.

So even if Ulfric forms alliances and treaties with other nations and territories he is still screwed. For no other nation has the power to defeat the Thalmor maybe united they could but that seems unlikely. Do to the fact that a highly trained highly disciplined military like the Imperial Legion was utterly annihilated when they tried fighting the Thalmor and they were the largest military in Tamriel.

Hammerfell might say that You are giving the Dominion too much credit as a Military Power in Tamriel.

Ulfric will lead the war, he wont wage it alone, he's not stupid.

But the Empire isn't keeping the Thalmor away... it brought them to Skyrim.

"I'm out my point is not getting across, probably because of how I'm wording it."

Skyrim is in a very good defensible position. With mountains on every side and only a couple of passes through these mountains, it would not be very difficult to keep the thalmor from entering Skyrim by land. Also each of those sides borders a providence not controlled by the thalmor. In fact they are controlled by groups that would probably not allow a thalmor army through them without a fight of their own. So the only other option for a thalmor attack is by sea. One look at skyrim's coastline and all of those shipwrecks tells you that the thalmor would suffer major casualties if they chose this route into Skyrim. This would leave their army weakened and ready to be fought back by the nords.

Skyrim could take the Thalmor in a defensive war.

I like to put it like this: No one can be expected to take the fight successfully to the Aldmeri Dominion. Even if it is somehow manageable to take Elseweyr and Valenwood, we can still dismiss any chance to take the Summerset Isles, because it has never been done by a force that was not a time-shattering, dwemer god-robot. Maybe this is proven false in the future, but based on the current lore, there is no reasonable chance. And, given that the Empire has been in decline for the last 200 years, I doubt they even have a chance to take Valenwood and Elseweyr.

Ultimately, the Thalmor and the Dominion has to be survived for now, and I think that is very poorly served by the Empire. Its trackrecord of ignoring the Dominion, and failing to keep its provinces, alone is a red flag. The appeasemant policy they've been running the last 26 years is worse. And the worst is that the Empire will prioritize Cyrodiil before everyone else. If you put Cyrodiil as more important than the rest of the provinces, supporting the Empire makes sense. if not, I can't make sense of it. And it isn't a "slippery slope" argument, because the Empire already showed itself willing to do it with Hammerfell.

Really, the act of the Empire is desperate at this point, both being willing to throw the entirety of Hammerfell to the wolves to save itself, and to accept a religious law that no one in their right mind would think wouldn't lead to a great deal of unrest. And they allow Thalmor Justiciars to enforce these laws, giving a great deal of mobility for the Thalmor within their borders. The disbanding of the Blades is a great negative too.

I don't see how continuing this appeasemant policy will benefit in the long run, when we can't expect the Empire to be able to defeat the Dominion. The Empire's play here is short term, because the WGC is so obviously designed to tear the Empire apart from the inside. If the Empire's leadership had had any sense of the longterm conflict, they wouldn't have accepted a treaty that alienated the Redguards and the Nords as much as it did.

Only step towards a real solution that I can see is doing what can be done to limit the Thalmor. Freeing Skyrim from the rule of a declining Empire that enforces Thalmor influence is a step in the right direction, if nothing else.

And, to address the topic title, Ulfric has dialogue with Galmar about having sent word to High Rock for support, so it doesn't seem like he is blindly putting faith in the Nords' ability to stand alone.

Skyrim is better served by a strong High King, not a weakling or a puppet. When your government fails to protect its citizens and aids your enemies, then you need a change of government.

This. And it ties in with my earlier point.

The empire is ALLOWING thalmor occupation in Skyrim! How does that even make sense? Its not like the empire is going to go visit the dominion and say. "Ok guys... we're ready to wage war again. So uh, if you guys could pull out from Skyrim that would uh... be great thanks."

Northwatch Keep for example is ON THE COAST. As earlier mentioned the coast is the only real accessible route the thalmor have to Skyrim. And then not far from Solitude (and not to mention in Solitude) is not one but TWO Thalmor bases. The Thalmor occupy Solitude! With the empire in "control" of Skyrim they pretty much have already handed it over to the dominion and Ulfric Stormcloak saw this. The only way he could rid Skyrim of the thalmor was to free it from control of the empire. That way the empire could not continue to allow the thalmor to remain there.

What is the empire thinking?

And like I said. Ulfric is not going to take on the thalmor alone. He'll bring friends. powerful friends.

No, I think it's because other posters are seeing the situation differently.

If the Empire can't defeat Ulfric, he probably stands a better chance against the Thalmor than the Empire does. It's a long way to Skyrim, and the Thalmor would find themselves dependent on a long supply line. It's the same old story with Empires; the bigger they get, the harder they are to hold. You don't need a massive army; you just need to cut the supply line.

Ulfric doesn't have to go to the Thalmor. They have to come to him before they can fight him. Seriously, would you want to try to invade a hostile place like Skyrim, with a well-armed, hardy population defending it? Take a read of the history books, and see how Napoleon and Hitler fared in their attempts to conquer Russia.

The Thalmor are a paper tiger. People forget they took devastating losses too, and due to elven biology it takes them a lot longer to replenish them. In the time it takes them to raise one replacement soldier, humans can produce five generations. In any long-term war, the Empire's mathematically bound to win.

I know that, I das actually talking about Ulfric's plana. The Thalmor could easily erradicate men.

I don't know that the Empire has a "backbone" at this point.

The Aldmeri Dominion has done a fairly good job of weakening and breaking up the Empire.

Even if they were to win the war against Ulfric it would only serve to weaken Skyrim and the Empire as a whole. Just dragging the war on is detrimental.

The only ones that are winning this war are the Thalmor and the Dominion.

I am really eager to ser what Will happen until The story of TES VI. I mean, how Wil men turn The situation? The only possibility I see is The Dragonborn, after all, if you remove The in game mechanics, he is freaking over power, Just some Yols and Fus and The elves are doomed. And he can tame dragons and since he defeated Alduin, he could've earned command over the Dragons in future lore.

I'd like to find out as well, but I've said it before (several times) and got laughed off the stage, but I'm going to say it again.

We will not personally see how the Thalmor get defeated. This (IMO) is something which will be dealt with between games. We may hear of their demise in TES 6, but I believe details will be sketchy at best. TES doesn't really follow the sort of storytelling that people are wanting regarding the Thalmor. Each game can be played on it's own without the need of playing any of the others in order to understand what's going on in the current one. Having them come back for an encore in TES 6 so we can see them fall from glory goes against Bethesda's style of development for TES. (Fallout 4 remains to be seen, but I suspect it won't be any different.)

this is actually probably exactly what will happen. Bethesda doesn't connect the games like a true series. Example Mass Effect where what you did in the first game impacts the third one. Because of everyone's different choices there is no conceivable way Bethesda can make the next TES 6 show a direct impact of the civil war. If they say the imperials win, us stormcloak fans are going to be pissed because THATS NOT WHAT HAPPENED IN OUR GAME! And the same if they say the Stormcloaks won. Imperial supporters will feel cheated.

If anything the Civil War will just be a footnote. Just a mention that it happened but no information regarding who won. Same with the thalmor...

Just like Skyrim takes place what 200 years after Oblivion? TES6 will likely be several hundred years after Skyrim.

The Empire has been important to the franchise from Day 1.

Its fate certainly is relevant enough to be addressed in the future.

Not necessarily. Oblivion took place just a few years after the events of Morrowind.

yeah but did anything you do in morrowind matter in Oblivion?

and the empire is falling... plain and simple. You think the provinces it abandoned during the war will want to rejoin the empire should the empire win? And even if the empire does win, it won't have the strength to retake what it gave up or lost. If anything I see the empire like the roman empire and all the other empires before it. it will crumble and fall. the war will see to that.

Ulfric is simply another power hungry man with an admirable intention. (that is simply my opinion of the man). I personally believe that if the thalmor don't just get swept aside as historical side note in a future TES game then neither a reunited empire or independent skyrim will make any real difference in whatever unfolds to stop the thalmor.