Skyrim's Greatest Mystery, Ever - The Fate of Uriel V

Hey how's it going guys it's Nate Hira and on this channel over the past few years we've quite literally explored hundreds of different Skyrim and elder scrolls mysteries to why the dwarves disappeared - what caused winter holds great collapse how come we can't visit atmora anymore chances are if there's a question about Skyrim we've analyzed it on this channel however one unexplained event in Elder Scrolls lore always intrigued me more than the others what happened to Uriel the fifth the Emperor that disappeared so if you're a longtime fan you may have heard me briefly bring this question up before in one of my previous videos and I think I may have spent two good three to five minutes explaining it however it's such a deep and complex conundrum with such massive implications in the Elder Scrolls universe that I've always wanted to do a full video dedicated to it where I could weigh everything out all of the context all of the theories and what they might mean anyway as you can probably guess that's what this is so without any further ado let's do further Uriel was crowned at an unknown age in the year 268 of the third era around 406 years prior to the events of the Elder Scrolls 5 and 260 eight years after tiber septim's conquests while the Septim Empire has been through some very turbulent times throughout its history he inherited the throne at a fairly uneventful and prosperous moment his father Sepphoris the previous ruler had just put down a pretty major uprising and greatly expanded the Imperial military by the time he passed away leaving the young Uriel with a powerful and United Kingdom at his disposal the third Empire was also already in control of pretty much all of Tamriel WA from the northern shores of skyrim to the glittering Summerset Isles however the 17th emperor was still eager to make a name for himself not wanting to squander the brilliant opportunity afforded to him with all this prosperity so he worked up to build a powerful Navy and set out to conquering a number of islands around him that up until now no Emperor had ever been able to subdue it and he was remarkably successful apparently we don't know a whole lot of the finer details in fact we don't even know what most of the islands he took over look like on a map seriously no clue how big smaller even what shape they were but according to the brief history of the Empire book 3 most of these islands were located either north of Tamriel in the sea of ghosts were far off Tamriel's eastern shores in the Padme ik ocean whatever the case these victories made Uriel very popular back at home many were beginning to consider him the greatest military mind since Tiber Septim it's important to note all of the in-game books we have about him really hammer this point home Uriel Septim v was an emperor loved by his people and his soldiers and was apparently a genius well after conquering a strange land mass called as Renee that's quote-unquote a few weeks east of Tamriel by ship Uriel decided that he was done with islands he decided that his next military campaign would be to conquer akavir itself and this is where things get really weird so just in case you're out of the loop akavir is the mysterious other continent that said to exist east of Tamriel across the Padme Ixia stories and tales of it are shrouded in myth and legend but evidently it's just as large if not larger than Tamriel itself and is home to monkey people ice demons a venomous snake men and more unfortunately like all of those islands Uriel was gobbling up there are no existing maps of akavir we players are aware of so anything you see is just a fan artist's depiction heck we're not even sure how far away from Tamriel it is regardless the lack of definitive knowledge about the place served as motivation for Uriel rather than a deterrent and so while on as Renee which is again a few weeks east of Tamriel in the padme ik c and therefore somewhere between Tamriel and a kuvira Uriel began planning an invasion over the next year or so supply lines were established more ships were built soldiers were recruited and there was allegedly even an extensive amount of magical reconnaissance done ahead of time our primary source for all of this preparation and what would follow is the book report the disaster at eye on earth which is or was a report commissioned by what was left of the Emperor's elder council after the akka veeery invasion to figure out what went wrong and what happened to the Emperor and yes spoiler alert in case it wasn't already obvious seen as our best source for all of this is report about what went wrong you can probably guess what faint Uriel's upcoming and adventure would lead him to but I digress evidently at least according to the reports authors the Emperor really didn't skimp on planning this thing he was careful to make sure he had extra extra grain to feed his armies made sure the Imperial mages doing the magical scouting were being triple checked and even had some extra legions in reserve just in case things went sour as far as we can tell despite how foolish it seems to try to land an army in such a mysterious place Uriel the fifth was doing his homework and was being cautious again we don't have maps so we can't get into specifics but the Emperor and his staff ultimately determined that their initial landing in akavir would be on a coast controlled by the say seu or the snake people look these would be the first folks Uriel aimed at to conquer it's critical we understand who this ase are in order to really grasp the situation at hand and knowing they're laura is essential to some of the theories we're gonna dive into a bit so let's spare a moment to talk about this strange race before going any further lucky us among the numerous organisms said to inhabit akavir the cser probably the ones we know the most about even if we're missing a lot of crucial details and that doesn't really mean anything the book mysterious a kuvira witch was written by an anonymous author and first appeared in the elder scrolls 3 morrowind described the CSE has been terrifying yet beautiful in appearance boasting golden scales and sharp fangs allegedly they even have an almost vampire like lust for blood having apparently killed all of the human beings who lived on a kuvira thousands of years ago and now they survive off of the blood of enslaved goblins accounts vary on their exact body structure some say they look relatively human just scaly while other texts alleged that they slither around on giant tails and possess shape-shifting capabilities regardless despite so much left vague the CSE played a surprisingly important role in Tamriel zone history as in the year two thousand seven hundred and three of the first era roughly a thousand years before Uriel's ascension to the throne they invaded Tamriel WA yeah that's right believe it or not this ase did what Uriel wants to do and came over here the assault began as their forces landed on the northern shores of Skyrim and started to fight their way down south to see radula mind you this was a thousand years ago way back in the first era when Skyrim and morrowind were both their own independent kingdoms and the second not the third serie Dilek Empire was just getting started the denizens of Tamriel were about as shocked by this attack as you can possibly imagine I mean just waking up one day to see legions of possibly vampiric possibly slithering armies of state people you've never even knew existed would be quite the pathline event to them it was like an alien attack to this day it's unclear what to say se wanted some argue they came only to find humans so they could drink our blood others argue they wanted new territory but it's still unknown but as they prepared to cross the Jerell mountains and leave skyrim to enter serie dela the army was met by riemann seer Adela the then Emperor and also founder and namesake of the second seer Adela Empire who happened to be a dragon born as Riemann's and the okapi forces began to clash before the fighting got really bloody at some point in time riemann used his dragon board abilities to dragon shout at the akka via our nia and much to his pleasant surprise the snake people all immediately surrendered and submitted as soon as they heard his voice they gave up they must have known what a dragon warned was and held the position in high regard after this event most of the lizard's just went back home and didn't bother anyone again though some chose to stay and serve this dragon born Emperor ax these ASE were the founders of the blades the Emperor's personal bodyguard and special forces that would go on to serve every remaining Dragonborn Emperor the blades of course would become a pretty influential organization in Tamriel on their own and while their membership over the years would include fewer and fewer say se eventually becoming an entirely Tamriel ik and racial makeup they'd still play a pivotal role in quite a few Elder Scrolls games before being destroyed by the Thalmor in the great war and possibly rebuilt by the Dragonborn at skyrim depending on how much you like Delphine and company anyway well I'd love to spend more time talking about the blades and the Aqua fury invasion of Tamriel we'll get back to all of this later for now just understand that the cser mysterious folk shrouded in myth yet also clearly quite advanced and civilized seen as they were capable of organizing an invasion of Tamriel ax and their who Uriel the fifth wanted to conquer first thus after months of planning he finally went into motion on the 23rd of rains hand in the year 288 of the third era Uriel finally departed from Ezra now and after sailing roughly four weeks east he and four veteran Imperial legions finally saw the shores of a kuvira their landing site was a large sassy coastal city that saddled the mouth of a river Oh evidently the Emperor chose it thanks to its close proximity to Tamriel supply lines and the fertility of nearby land while Uriel and his generals expected to storm the city and capture it the Imperials were pleasantly surprised to find the place totally abandoned when they showed up and the forces were able to disembark with absolutely no resistance it would seem the natives must have known the Empire was coming ahead of time and retreated further inland either way Uriel was just happy to finally be on dry land the newly occupied city was renamed septa Mia the first imperial colony of a kuvira and derail immediately had the engineers begin fortifying the city's defenses and expanding its port to better suit the Imperial fleet from here the Emperor took all four of his legions and marched inland upriver leaving behind just a small garrison according to a report the akaviri countryside was full of well watered fields and various natural resources this was great news seen as the empire would be able to start planting crops and collecting harvests as well as my medal and wouldn't be so dependent on overseas supply lines eventually the legions encountered another recently abandoned city upriver and occupied it renaming the place Ayana 'the remember that report is called the disaster at on earth just some food for thought anyway the city was much larger than septa Mia so Uriel decided to make it is a Kaveri capital this would be the new headquarters of the expedition from here with two large settlements secured and only four legions the Imperials decided to focus on building up logistics and defenses while they awaited reinforcements Legionnaires went to work constructing roads between septa Mia and I on earth as well as building small forts and guard posts on the way things were largely going well though they finally began encountering some resistance and SE se raiding parties started to harass the soldiers as they built roads and supply caravans as they moved between the two towns some started to call on the Emperor to keep pressing inland to keep the snake folk in the apparent retreat they were already in when the invasion began and hopefully even score a decisive victory however Uriel was still unsure of the exact size of the enemy he was facing and he knew that he had more troops which would be arriving soon so instead for now the Emperor opted to start dispatching emissaries and ambassadors to quote contact the CSE king or whoever ruled this land end quote it looks as though the Emperor was hoping to just convince the natives to surrender some land and avoid bloodshed altogether regardless the report suggests that virtually none of these diplomats ever made it back and it appears no one was ever able to figure out what was governing the snake people anyway sometime in the year 289 a major setback occurred when just a few days after a large shipment of thousands of civilian colonists landed in AH kuvira the weather on the sea took a turn for the brutal and became incredibly violent and stormy it would get so bad that the ships had to just stop travelling altogether totally cutting off the expeditionary force from its supply lines and any hope of those reinforcements alas this would merely be the first in a series of unfortunate events and tremendous setbacks that would ultimately lead to Uriel's doom despite losing any hope of recovering supplies there was still quite a bit of optimism within the Imperial ranks I mean this was incredibly fertile land they were occupying they'd simply just have all the new civilian colonists start farming problem solved but then temperature started to cool and within months they started to freeze farming would have to wait now with thousands of additional civilian mouths to feed the Imperials were forced to depend totally on the grain reserves they had already brought with them and rations were getting tight to make matters worse say as he attacks were getting even stronger as they started to totally overrun forts and guard posts between septum--ah and I on earth and blizzards were forcing the Empire to just straight-up abandon some positions when the weather finally did get warmer months later to everyone's horror spring brought a terrible dry wind rather than rain crops would fail yet again it got so hot that the river which connected septa me and I on earth dried up entirely with a now very spookey food situation and storms ravaging the seas the Imperials resorted to a desperate plan you see vessels could make it across the ocean from akavir to Tamriel if they had a handful of very skilled battle mages aboard as fortunately enough enough Imperial mages were capable of accurately predicting weather patterns and just slightly changing them just enough to help a small number of ships look through back and forth it wasn't a lot of food urea would be able to get but he needed anything once he sent the battle mages to see our details on what exactly happened next in a kuvira start to get really shady as it was the battle mages who are the ones actually writing stuff down and telepathically communicating with the elder council back in Tamriel the ones that remained with Uriel's men were very busy creating water for the army to drink something they were never particularly trained to do and required a tremendous amount of Magica what we do know is that a few months into the summer a large say ser me was sighted just a few miles from my oneth Uriel decided to march out with all four of his legions to confront the hosts and he actually decisively smashed it totally destroying the CIC force however as he and his men were chasing down the survivors of another even larger say ser me appeared and the Imperials were forced to retreat back behind I on its walls suffering massive casualties before they were besieged at this point in time full panic mode was activated it's unclear today how large this besieging say se army was but considering it forced four of the Empire's most experienced legions to retreat behind walls it must have been huge this is also when Uriel and his forces totally stopped communicating with the outside world his mages were just too preoccupied magically creating food for the men and fighting off assaults to spend any energy communicating and he sure as oblivion couldn't get any of his messengers to sneak through enemy for months I on earth was apparently being besieged and the elder counsel who is running things back in Tamriel started working on a plan to get the legions and their Emperor out of there sometime in the year two ninety a small group of ships was able to slip through the storms and made it to the port city of septum iya which apparently was also being besieged too though by a smaller say ser me the older council figured that if you real and his men could break out from i onif and then break through the army that was besieging septum you too they could make it into the city and be evacuated Ravens were dispatched to ion if giving the emperor this plan and what we know next comes from the few survivors who would make it back home towards the end of the year the entire Imperial Army rushed from the gates of I on earth and successfully broke through the enemy lines before they started rushing down the road to septa Mia but before Uriel and his four legions could make it they were surrounded and over ran by say se forces a heroic last stand was made which allowed a few hundred soldiers to escape to septa Mia but not the Emperor nor most of his officers two soldiers reported watching him get struck down by arrows as he rallied a shield wall this is the last known account of the Uriel v the survivors who made it to the port city as well as the rest of that city's small garrison quickly boarded on the ships and escaped to Tamriel before that city - was probably retaken by the CIC and thus was the end of Imperial activity in a kuvira somewhere around forty to seventy thousand people went on that expedition from soldiers to officers to civilians and only a few hundred returned one of the greatest tragedies the septum Empire would ever suffer with the emperor presumed dead his five-year-old son assumed the throne and the long process of mourning and rebuilding began okay so this is all a great sad story a tale of a magnificent Emperor who led his over-ambition get to his head and paid the ultimate price for it but where's the mystery in all this I promised I mean to Imperial soldiers clearly reported that they saw their Emperor get struck down by arrow fire Uriel died he's not missing like the title of my video claims well before I get to the really damning stuff I should say that players have been theorizing Uriel the fifth survival for years now remember how a thousand years ago the CIC invaded Tamriel and they were ultimately stopped when Riemann's seer Adel revealed to them he was a dragon born causing all of the SE SE to lay down their arms and submit well Uriel the fifth was also a dragon born himself indeed all of the septum Emperor's were he possessed the same shouting powers perhaps those two Imperial soldiers who report seeing the Emperor get shot down by arrow fire were just wrong or maybe they were liars maybe while making that heroic last stand after all the other soldiers escaped the Emperor shouted once or twice and maybe that caused the CIC to lay down their arms and submit or maybe the Emperor didn't get hit with a couple of arrows but they didn't kill him they just caused him to fall unconscious and after the battle was over in the say s he recovered his body they realized he was a dragon born and changed their minds a bit if Uriel v somehow survived the disaster at AI Atif this has some incredibly huge implications on the Elder Scrolls lore because it means that the Septon bloodline of Emperor's might not be gone after all you see at the conclusion of the events of the Elder Scrolls for oblivion the last member of the septum Dragonborn bloodline a man named Martin Septim dies sacrificing himself to save Tamriel from a Daedric invasion with the septums all gone following a brief internal power struggle the mead family emerged on top and became the new rulers of the septum third Empire however because there was no longer a Dragonborn emperor sitting on the throne the Empire lost the divine protection of akatosh the god of dragons and things got really bad the red mountain and mora win erupted causing a massive crisis the Thalmor began gathering power and eventually defeated the empire in the Great War and now the Imperial province of Skyrim might break away depending on the player's actions in the Elder Scrolls 5 but assuming Uriel the fifth survived at ion a--the and assuming he had a children or I don't know just stayed alive via magical means it would mean there's still a septum out there and if that person could be put back on the throne maybe Tamriel's current down spin could be turned around this sounds like a crazy crackpot theory but here's the thing I've been waiting to tell you all this time this crazy idea I proposed in which Uriel somehow survived the disaster at AI on earth and could one day return to Tamriel to take back his throne and restore the septum bloodline to the Empire well that was originally the plot for the Elder Scrolls 5 at least while the game was in pre-production speaking to staff of the unofficial Elder Scrolls pages during an interview at PAX East 2019 Todd Howard said this when asked about fan theories quote I think that they're all good like I said they're people want to know the truth but even my perspective is one version of the truth of what happened in the history of the Elder Scrolls and so forth I would tamper their desire to have all mysteries revealed because mysteries are good for a fantasy world to have what is beyond the ocean wouldn't you do a game in a kuvira these are all things we have thought about I could sit here and tell you lots about akka meter actually one of the original Skyrim designs had I think it was Uriel the fifth returning with his army of dragons from akavir to retake his throne but it was sort of like cape the mysterious lands mysterious there's enough to do in Tamriel proper as time goes on I like to have those elements of mystery or really strange things you can't wrap your head around end quote so there you have it at one point Skyrim's plotline wasn't supposed to center round all to win and Paarthurnax in the great battle for the world leader but instead was supposed to send around the return of Uriel the fifth from a kuvira he survived in fact this is why I think so many of our sources from the scrolls for oblivion are so careful to paint him in a good light back when Bethesda was making Taz for they already knew or suspected that they might want to have Uriel v play a big part in Skyrim so when they were writing books about him they were careful to make sure he was presented as a good guy because perhaps they were preparing to make him a protagonist another important part about Todd Howard's quote that I don't want to forget is that he mentions Uriel the fifth returning with an army of dragons somehow he got them ISM I mean a Kabir's name does literally translate into dragon land however the people of Skyrim had always assumed the Dragons an occupier had all been killed thousands of years ago apparently not apparently they must still be there another interesting question is how did you real v survive all this time I mean the events of Skyrim take place over six hundred years following his assumed death so how did he live well one of the Dominions of akatosh the god of dragons who muriel v is technically a child of is time maybe dragon magic somehow kept him ageless I think this could be an incredible plot line for Bethesda to perhaps exercise sometime in the future I mean so often when we talk about the Elder Scrolls 6 most people just assume that game will all be about a second great war between the Empire in the Dominion but perhaps by the time that game starts the realms of men will have already have been conquered by the High Elves and the game's plot can revolve around Uriel the fifth returning and writing those wrongs I don't know that's just an idea of mine nonetheless despite being such an incredible narrative that so few people in the Elder Scrolls community know about Bethesda ultimately did decide not to use this plotline and therefore at least Kanak Lee speaking the fate of Uriel v does remain a mystery looking at the timeline we've already been in this video for well over 20 minutes so I feel like this is a good point to wrap up on thanks so much for stopping by everybody what do you think happened to Uriel v do you think he really was cut down by a and that was the end of that or do you think he'll return in a future Elder Scrolls game or DLC maybe he revealed his Dragonborn powers and the sassy made him a king of sorts what every right he is leave him in the comments section down below I'd love to know your thoughts anyway thanks again for watching and hope to catch you all in my next video peace out everyone

Channel: TheEpicNate315

Views: 466,782

Rating: 4.9486337 out of 5

Keywords: Skyrim, The Elder Scrolls 5: Skyrim, Skyrim Special Edition, The Elder Scrolls 5, Skyrim Top 5, Skyrim Rare Items, Skyrim Facts, Skyrim Secrets, Skyrim tiny Details, Skyrim Mysteries, Skyrim Theories, Things You Didn't Know You Could Do In Skyrim, Skyrim Top 10, The Elder Scrolls 6, Skyrim Uriel V, Skyrim Lore, Elder Scrolls Lore, Skyrim Mods, Skyrim Mod, TheEpicNate315

Id: lFULurUf0Pk

Length: 27min 3sec (1623 seconds)

Published: Fri Apr 17 2020