You keep bringing the Dragonborn this Dragonborn that ... but one of my Dragonborn is Aldmeri and kills Imperials as well as Stormcloaks on sight.
What proof do you have the canon Dragonborn will be defending Skyrim ?

Also, as far as i am concerned the main story is about saving the world as a whole, Alduin will not limit himself to the province.
Tis just like the Oblivion gates, in the game you learn that gates openned in every province and not just in Cyrodiil ! What proof do you have dragons are not raiding Blackmarsh while you are gathering 10 fire salts for Balimund ?

I mean ok Dragonborn is cool and all that but he/she is just like previous TES main characters : expendable storywise, and seeing past track of hero history with Beth i predict Dragonborn will either fall in nothingness or become something but stay out of the main frame of events in the future.

The Empire will fall just like Rome. Cyrodiil will just be Cyrodiil. After they've been a part of Aldemri ofc. Skyrim will also fall. Every nation will fall to Aldmeri.
The next game will be about Tamriels rebellion against Aldmeri. Everyone will rise up against those damn Altmers.

considering that the Thalmor want the Stormcloaks to win, i would say...no. The Dominion wants the empire and skyrim to bloody each up as much as possible, then sabotauge the empire so they lose, and then the gold armored, slant-eyed, magic-wielding elves will crush them both. that's why i don't want to take sides.

I smell a Thalmor/Aldmeri Dominion DLC... This would be great! I'm a Stormcloak and I have to say, they don't look like a sizable force and not very coordinated/logic. Not to mention that stupid Ulfric... He's annoying as hell!

In the short run maybe; Daggerfall successfully drove back the Dominion single-handedly when the empire abandoned them. However in the long run the Dominion could slowly regain strength and if you choose to side with the Stormclokes it is possible Ulfric will not assist the empire if/when the imperials are later faced by the Dominion; if cyrodill is lost to the Dominion they will rapidly grow in strength and albeit the Nords would put up a good fight eventually they would fall.

The best hope for the empire and the lives of everyone i Skyrim is to side with the Imperials so if they are later faced by the Dominion they will have the much needed support of the Nords.

Wrong. The thalmor want no one to win. Ulfric winning is an outcome they really don't want.




Uriel died a long time ago. The empire hasn't been the same since martin died. The empire has become cyrodiil with a bunch of the provinces its resources but not caring about them.

The Dominion can't rapidly grow in strength. Elves have a terribly slow reproduction rate.

There is something else you all aren't considering. Dragons. Skyrim now has a ton of them, if any sizable army were to march into skyrim, they'd definately attract the attention of the dragons in the mountains. And considering lore wise a single dragon is able to lay waste to a whole town..

Did i say Uriel?... I meant Ulfric...

All it would take is an arrow to the knee.

Exactly.
Exact quote from dossier is :

LOL at guerilla warfare vs detect life spells.

Thalmor would stomp the low-lying holds with ease

With me, yes.

The Thalmor don't want the Stormcloaks to win... if it's a quick, decisive victory. What they want is for a long and bloody stalemate to occur, then for the Stormcloaks to win only when both sides are bloodied and beaten. That way, everyone is weakened enough for the Thalmor to come sweep everything up, AND humanity's forces are divided.

The fact that they need to wait for the Imperials and the Nords to bloody each other speaks volumes about the strength of Skyrim as an independent power.

Theyre probably more worried about the Empire than an Independant Skyrim.
And what about the Justiciars that are already in Skyrim, the whole Thalmor vs Blades Cold War Esbern and Delphine talk about? A lot of people that want to see a Stormcloak victory say how all the Nords need to do is use guerrilla tactics, then they win. The Justiciars in Skyrim (probably) have a good knowlege of the country (they pretty much have to). The Thalmor have proven that they can play the whole espionage game rather well, so what's stopping them from eradicating Skyrim leadership like they did with the Blades.

If that was the case, then they would at the very least support the idea of a quick victory on the part of the Stormcloaks, which is not the case.





What's stopping the Thalmor from bringing in more sleeper agents as long as the Empire continues to enable them? If the existence of Justicars in Skyrim means that Skyrim is doomed as an independent power (it doesn't; the Thalmor presence in Skyrim is limited to an Embassy and a minute presence in each of the holds), then Skyrim under Imperial rule is just as doomed.

I am so glad to finally hear somebody else say this! Thanx! It is not inevitable that the Empire or the Thalmor would win against the Nords, and the Nords could also gain powerfull allies (such as Hammerfall) after rebelling against the Imperial Empire's Rule. The Empire should have freed the Nords and made peace with them while they had a chance. They knew that the Nords were proud people but looked down on them openly as being so called Barbarians, and treated them disrespectfully and denied them the right to practice their own native religion or choose their own High Kings without interference. There diplomacy towards the Nords was very poor, and they allienated the Nords as allies by their treatment of them at a time the Thalmor was a threat. Of course the Imperials might try for a peace treaty with the Nords, once the Nords have reclaimed their own country. It is the only way some other provinces got to practice their own religion was by making sure it was in any peace treaty. The Imperials allowed the Dunmer that much. The Nords have their own natural resources and many of them live off the land and smithing and such..and they even have all they need in Skyrim to supply their own Taverns..LOL.Also how Skyrim is geographically situated is to their own advantage and if they were to have an alliance with Hammerfell, there is not much way the Empire could beat a free Skyrim. .(by maintaining control from inside they knew they had a better chance of forcing them) Reading some ingame Imperial books, the Imperial see the Skyrim as having inhospitable cold etc..not land they really want to live on, but that they want to control merely for tactical reasons with the less energy expended to do so as is needed, the better. They deal harshly with the Nords to keep them in place where they vwant them for their own purposes. And the Empire won't really hurt a freed Skyrim as much as some assume by cutting off trade. It would hurt the Empire more, since trade and conquest for the purpose of extracting natural resources and soldiers from their subjugated provinces seems to be their primary motivation for pretending to half-heartedly accept other races long enough to do so. (Without so many Orcs in their Legions they might have fallen already, though they do seem to somewhat appreciate the Orcs who join their Legions back in Morrowind, at least.)

What about the Bretons? Nords and Bretons seem to be like cousins in their attributes and get along well together on a personal level when they do mingle. Where do the Bretons, fit into the political scheme of all these wars in this era? Would they try to stay neutral? Which way would they lean if they were forced to choose sides? Could the Nords possibly gain them as allies in a war or at least convince them not to help their enemies, the Empire or the Thalmor against the Nords and their allies? Will the Bretons be left out of it all, if that is what they want? What would they stand to gain or lose from any side in it?

One Word: Hammerfell.

I agree. It is not inevitable that the Thalmor would win. Why do so many think that they are more powerful than anybody else and that they will win no matter what or that Bethesda will just make the Dragonborn disappear and the Thalmor win? Maybe Bethesda will surprise us. ? Further, not all Altmer believe in the Thalmor Dominion. They could end up with their own worse Civil War and also as someone mentioned Thalmor do not breed as fast as man or most beast races either, so when some of them are killed in wars, they can not replenish their numbers as quickly even.

Also why would being an Imperial footstool be any better for the Nords, then being allies with Hammerfell which borders them and has beaten great armies by themselves before? Even without an alliance it is doubtful Hammerfell would let the Empire or the Dominion across their borders marching their armies through their province just to get to Skyrim and the Nords can defend their sea coast as well, and the Imperials are not frost resistant and would have to cross huge cold mountains if trying to come up straight from their own province into the south part of Skyrim..or what few small passes they came through they would be wiped down like sitting ducks by the frost resistant Nords, if most of them didn't die on the way. It is very unlikely Skyrim could be defeated by the Imperials and with a Nord alliance with Hammerfall the Dominion would not fare well either. Is the Magic of the Thalmor that so intimidates people? Well, the Bretons are very magical and are able to reproduce faster than the Thalmor, where do they stand on things?

Also someone made a good point that warriors from other lands passing through would be attacked by Dragons, not to mention Frost Trolls and Giants and other Beings and Creatures used to the Skyrim cold. I do not think war with Skyrim and especially both Skyrim and Hammerfell would be easy for anybody.

Agreed! All excellent points! I thought about what happened in Russia too. And consider in our current story compared to past human history, there is even less difference in cold adaptation between germans and russians, than there is between cold adaptation between the thalmor and nords. The thalmor will freeze their tails off, maybe even worse than the imperials! hahaha

Besides, those invaders do not really want to live in the cold of Skyrim, they only want it to prevent their other enemies from having it tactically. A free Skyrim might require more expenditure than they are willing to expend just for that, if they knew Skyrim was back under a real Nord leader who would fight like heck against any further attempts at invasion and not the Empire's puppets or anybody else's anymore. The Stormcloaks will beat the Imperials much more easily than people think and the subsequent stronger Skyrim will be united and no longer divided by who is for Imperial Puppets and who is for Skyrim. I think the Civil War will make them stronger than ever, not weakened, as long as the Empire does not kill Ulfric and then put another puppet in as High King somehow. But even if Ulfric lives long enough for the Stormcloaks to free Skyrim and then long enough to make sure the Nord Moot is able to pick true High Kings again instead of puppets for invaders, Skyrim can stay strong.

And i also agree with u that the Dragonborn is a huge asset to the Nords. And since when is somebody racist (as some say of Ulfric instead of the Imperials or others) because the Nords and Ulfric are from the place they live in and resent invaders taking over? U do not think the invaders are racist for having the arrogance to push Nords around in their own homeland and act like it doesn't matter because they deem themselves 'less Barbarian than the Nords who evolved on that land since ancient times and did not turn themselves into something as wretched as some who speak ill of them? (Does that mean the Native Americans were the racist ones because they eventually resented the way they were treated by foreigners coming into their land treating them poorly and taking over the land to their demise? I think not! ) The Nords are no more racist than any of the other races, and probably less than most, but they do not like being stepped on either. So some NPC said this or that against the Nords or Ulfric, yes but some NPC have their own different agenda other than caring about Skyrim's freedom and some really have been Imperial Spies and Thalmor spies, Ulfric has good reason to fear that, so as not to walk into any more traps where everybody there, Stormcloak or not, will still be beheaded! . But If u tell Ulfric u want to fight for Skyrim because it is your home now, he will treat u as an equal to a Nord in his Stormcloaks regarrdless of your race. That's not racist. But if u go around acting like everything is his fault because he wants a free Skyrim, everything from the Thalmor to the Forsworn's wretched behavoir including canabalism and that those supporting their propaganda that they are all just innocent victims of Ulfric or the Nords of Skyrim, are supposedly more reliable witnesses of who he is than the truth, then of course u will get the cold shoulder or be suspected as a spy. LOL So what DOES bring u to Skyrim in that case anyway? Maybe it would be a fair question, and not racist one afterall. LOL Of course some will say they are just there to be a thief and it does not really matter and others will say they are there to support the Imperials and some will join the Stormcloaks, Some will even play one way, then try another. Maybe which ever side u are on when u play the Dragonborn will always win! That is probably the real answer. LOL

Can the Stormcloaks defend Skyrim? Possibly. As a the result of being freed can the Nords (now more united) defend Skyrim? Yes, they sure could.

IMO the Champion of Cyrodiil was one of the "invalids" that remained in Hammerfell, and thats a big reason why the Aldmeri were driven back.

You forget that this is 200 years after oblivon and the champion of cyrodiil would have long since died.
Besides

They should give us a bloody spoiler button <_<

They haven't fallen.. yet.