Why The Stormcloaks MUST Win

the day the empire signed that damn treaty was the day the empire died how's it going guys nordic warrior here so as we get nearer skyrim's 10-year anniversary one debate has continued to divide players and sparked numerous discussions theories and hypotheses among the elder scrolls community and that is of course the skyrim civil war the empire loyalists and the nord rebels aka the stormcloaks if you're watching this video then i'm going to assume that you have played the elder scrolls 5 skyrim at least once and know at least something about the skyrim civil war but for the uninitiated essentially what happened is the empire was engulfed in a war against the albury dominion which is an alliance between the high elves the khajiit the wood elves and basically in the aftermath of the oblivion crisis the al murray dominion waged war on the empire which was still in a weakened state and before the empire could be completely overrun in the imperial city the emperor titus mead and the thalmor who are the ruling body of the dominion signed a peace treaty in order to avoid any more losses and bloodshed on both sides the thalmor it's believed had hoped to hold on to the imperial city but underestimated the empire and the soldiers resolve and had to settle for a treaty likewise the emperor wanted to buy time and preserve the empire preserved the lives of his soldiers and left to fight another day unfortunately what happened as a result of the treaty was the thalmor made several demands one of those demands was for the empire to ban the worship of talos who the nords of skyrim revere above any other race now there were various other terms of the treaty which i will discuss later in the video because believe me that is important and um yeah i'll get to that but basically the events of skyrim take place about 30 years after the great war had ended and the treaty had been signed alfred stormcloak the yall of windhelm skyrim's oldest city decided to start a rebellion against the empire and declared skyrim's independence controversially he started this rebellion by murdering the high king of skyrim hiking torig reports differ as to the nature of the incident some say the ulfric stormcloak challenged torrei to a duel in the old nord way giving him a rightful claim to the throne of high king others say the ulfric stormcloak committed treason and cheated in the fight by using the power of the voice which ulfric actually himself admits that he did and he did this of course in order to gain an advantage over torig but nonetheless many of the nodes of skyrim see ulfric as a hero and the savior while others namely empire and imperial loyalists seal frick is a murderer and a tyrant who's only out for himself and lust for power and for the throne of skyrim rather than a genuine desire to free and liberate his people from the tyranny of the empire so that's essentially the gist of the story there are so much more that i could get into but it would literally take hours to cover everything and get the uninitiated up to speed with the entire story now in this video as you guys can tell by the title i'm going to be discussing why i personally believe and feel that the stormcloaks and not the empire should and must win the civil war and why it's absolutely necessary at this point for skyrim to cut all ties with the current empire and gain true independence let's discuss it now i remember on my first ever playthrough of skyrim i actually decided to side with the empire and the reason for this is the fact that it becomes very clear to anyone who plays skyrim for more than a few hours that the stormcloak rebellion is not all what it seems and perhaps more importantly alfred the leader of the stormcloak rebellion is not what he seems and may in fact have an ulterior motive i used my real life experience of politics and stuff to apply logic to this and also discovered several bits of in-game information that myself and most skyrim players in fact noticed and experienced that made us skeptical at best about ulfric and his true intentions one piece of information that you can find is a thalmor dossier located in the inside of the thalmor embassy which clearly states that ulfric himself is an asset to the thalmor and that the stormcloak uprising was a direct cause of the thalmor's manipulation and political meddling it reads as follows alfred came to our attention during the first war against the empire when he was taken as a prisoner of war during the campaign for the white gold tower under interrogation we learned of his potential value the son of the yall of windhelm and he was assigned as an asset to the interrogator who is now first emissary elonwin he was made to believe information obtained during his interrogation was crucial in the capture of the imperial city the city had in fact fallen before he had broken and then allowed to escape after the war contact was established and he has proven his worth as an asset the so-called markov incident was particularly valuable from the point of view of our strategic goals in skyrim although it has resulted in ulfric becoming generally uncooperative to direct contact operational notes direct contact remains a possibility under extreme circumstances but in general the asset should be considered dormant as long as the civil war proceeds in its current undecisive fashion we should remain hands off the incident at helgen is an example where an exception had to be made obviously ulfric's death would have dramatically increased the chance of an imperial victory and thus harmed our overall position in skyrim no the coincidental intervention of the dragon at helgen is still under scrutiny the obvious conclusion is that whoever is behind the dragons also has an interest in the continuation of the war but we should not assume therefore that their goals align with our own a stormcloak victory is also to be avoided however so even indirect aid to the stormcloaks must be carefully managed now this dossier is a real eye-opener and gives a lot of insight into the thalmor's true intentions it also makes it very clear that ulfric stormcloak is an asset meaning the thalmor used him to further their goals in skyrim and stoke up trouble for the empire now i must point out because there is a fair bit of confusion here this dossier does not state that ulfric is a direct agent of the thalmor and is somehow in cahoots with them that of course is possible but not very likely it's in fact more likely that ulfric is what the real life truth community would refer to as a disinformation agent or a shill or maybe a provocateur of sorts meaning his cause is true his ideology is a good one but the ruling elite use and manipulate him to weaken and subvert his cause the type of thing that goes on all the time in real life politics and there are many provocateurs like ulfric who maybe have their hearts in the right place and have the right political ideology you know that you may share but when it comes down to it the people pulling his strings and manipulating the discord so to speak have ulterior motives and are scheming ulfric in any case is not someone who you want to put your trust and your faith in that's for that's for sure um however in regards to the thalmor dossier there are several things stated that skyrim players who tend to side with the empire often overlook like for example it states as long as the civil war remains in its current undecisive fashion now what that means is pretty obvious the thalmor don't want the civil war to end they want it to continue for as long as possible weakening both sides distracting both factions from the true enemy the thalmor also notice how they state our overall goals in skyrim now what are those overall goals you may ask well this is where it gets very interesting i mentioned earlier how the concord the treaty that was signed between the empire and the dominion had several other demands from the thalmor one of those demands was that hammerfell to the west of skyrim would be handed over to the elves this of course led to hammerfell rebelling against the empire and resisting the thalmor with everything they had this move actually backfired on the thalmor big time because they were ultimately not able to conquer hammerfell and were fought to a standstill once again the courage and resilience of men being a complete shock to the elves the thalmor had failed to conquer hammerfell so had to resort to scheming and political manipulation in order to carry out their goals in that region had the thalmor flat out attempted to invade skyrim it likely would have been the same outcome or worse for the thalmor as the nords would never willingly allow elves to take over their homeland certainly not without putting up a huge fight this led to the thalmor using their new ultimate weapon against skyrim and it's essentially the empire bear with me here now because i know a lot of elder scrolls fans who have played through skyrim and who tend to side with the empire will disagree with me here but the dumbest and most ridiculous thing you will ever hear from the imperial soldier npcs in skyrim is this quote that keeps popping up what the rebels like to forget is that the empire is what's keeping the dominion out of skyrim this could not be further from the truth as not only are the empire the only thing actually keeping the dominion in skyrim but the empire is complicit in absolutely facilitating and supporting the thalmor in this regard for example see how it states in the thalmor dossier a stormcloak victory is to be avoided now why is this well if you observe what goes on in game one of the things that you will often witness is how you may have random encounters involving the thalmor be it wandering the roads arresting people battling stormcloak soldiers etc what you will notice about these random encounters is that they only take place in imperial controlled holds let's say you see the thalmor on occasion wondering the roads of whiterun hold once the stormcloaks have liberated whiterun these random encounters stop altogether you don't see them anymore this is because the thalmor are only able to operate in skyrim when they have absolute diplomatic immunity given to them by the empire the foul will have an embassy in hafengar and even a headquarters in solitude the empire's main base in skyrim and the current capital the empire despite the idiotic comments from the imperial soldier npcs are absolutely the only thing keeping the dominion in skyrim and making life much harder for the indigenous nords the empire does absolutely nothing to stop innocent nords being dragged off in the middle of the night and interrogated or executed for their beliefs and for refusing to bend knee to the thalmor and their justice years and hired thugs who are just given complete immunity throughout skyrim by the empire this is the truth andolimer the thalmor justicier in markov openly admits that the thalmor hoped to prove the superiority of moore over man one generation at a time markov at this point being an imperial controlled city allowing the thalmor to act with absolute diplomatic immunity against the local nords with no fear of any sort of intervention from the empire the all of solitude else if the queen of the um deceased recently high king torig if seen at the thalmor embassy openly expresses her agreements and allegiance with the thalmor making it perfectly clear that she supports and facilitates them remember this is very important because if the empire wins the skyrim civil war y'all else elisif will become the high queen of skyrim i shudder at the thought as ulfric himself states put torig's woman on the throne she will hand skyrim over to the elves on a sing a silver plate i happen to agree regardless of of whether or not general tullius would wage war on the thalmor or not the fact of the matter is skyrim's potential queen and leader respects and supports the tyranny of the thalmor on a side note elsif is a woman and let's be honest a woman should never be in charge of a country i mean that's just a recipe for disaster but i digress it's worth pointing out too that if markov is liberated by the stormcloaks andolamere who i mentioned earlier the thalmor justiciar in markov is executed and there is actually a cut scene in the game's files where he is executed by the man himself galmore stonefist proving once again that despite ulfric being a thalmor asset the stormcloaks who follow him are not afraid of taking up arms against the thalmor and showing defiance to them unlike the imperial soldiers who are mostly terrified of offending or confronting the thalmor in any way and turning a blind eye to all of their actions and crimes across skyrim back to the thalmor dossier our overall goals in skyrim now i pointed out earlier that previous attempts by the thalmor to invade hammerfell failed and the thelma had to rethink their strategy in that region in skyrim the thalmor despite diplomatic protection that has been given to them by the empire have many power seeking schemes to gain advantage in the next great war for example you can discover that within the civil war being fought all across the holds the thalmor are in various areas of interest looking for power they're in the college of winterhold you actually have a thalmor agent there called ancano looking for certain artifacts looking to infiltrate the college and acquire several powerful artifacts and powerful knowledge and powerful spells and whatnot that could of course be taken back to the thalmor and um give them an edge in the next great war you also find that valmer another thalmor agent is attempting to acquire the dragon priest masks to unlock the power at labyrinthian they have even gone as far as to study the dragon cult to find out what ancient powers the thelmor can acquire and skyrim they also have spies agents and assassins all over the place not all of them elves they have many khajiit and even some red guards working for them the thalmor are everywhere in skyrim and are scheming to take over from the inside if the stormcloaks win the civil war and this is very important to bear this in mind if the stormcloaks win this becomes impossible the thelma would have no diplomatic immunity whatsoever and would be almost certainly ran out of skyrim in a matter of weeks another thing that the thalmor did not count on of course was the dragonborn of course the embassy can easily be infiltrated by the player ellenwood can be slaughtered as can andolomo and kano valmer etomo and pretty much all of the high-ranking thalmor agents in skyrim with all of these agents wiped out and with the stormcloaks fully in control of every hold the thalmor and their entire operation in skyrim is done finished no more than just issues no more wrongful arrests and no more diplomatic immunity from the empire in the mission called missing in action that you can start in whiterun you can actually assault a thou more stronghold called northwatch keep the only stronghold i might add that this elmo actually has in skyrim they still have that stronghold but it's their only one wipe it out and and the gods will often point out how the thelmor have been taken down a notch meaning that the thalmor is pretty much a non-issue in skyrim now if you attack a thermal justiciar on the road there is a chance that you can be attacked by a group of thalmor assassins sent by ellenwin this proves that the thalmor know and fear the wrath of the dragonborn and did not count on his involvement in the events of skyrim with the dragonborn wiping out foul more justice years on the road again that just continues to disrupt the thalmor's entire goals and operations in skyrim as for the empire being needed for the second great war i disagree strongly first of all let's make one thing perfectly clear the empire as we know it is dead if you look at the current state of the provinces of tamriel morrowind is no longer part of the empire hammerfell is no longer part of the empire blackmarsh is no longer part of the empire elsewhere and valenwood not only left the empire but were basically conquered by the aldmeri dominion years ago somerset isles is of course the base of the thalmor and of course um one of the provinces that cyrodiil is at war with and has been throughout history um even when they were part of the empire that you know they were still on sort of an uneasy alliance the only provinces that the empire still has at the moment in time is cyrodiil which of course is where the empire is based and of course high rock which is divided and full of petty squabbles and is no threat to the dominion or assistance to the empire whatsoever so in reality if the stormcloaks win skyrim's independence cyrodiil is the only province of the empire left and i mentioned high rock already which is basically a non-issue so yeah it's basically just cyrodiil against the aldmeri dominion so yeah the empire is a joke at this point and it knows it can't survive and it's trying to drag skyrim to failure along with it as gal more stonefist so rightfully pointed out the day the empire signed that treaty was the day the empire died in closing if skyrim was to become truly independent and was to go to war with the dominion it seems inevitable that hammerfell would join them and let's not forget a few minor details that a lot of people don't really point out in the events of the dragonborn dlc where the dragonborn in addition to saving solstein makes some very powerful and well-connected friends at house veteran the current rulers of morrowind and a great house of noble warriors something to think about there the dunmer do hate outsiders and are not exactly a friend to skyrim i mean completely the opposite they've been warned with skyrim throughout history but at very least they are no friend to the thalmor and do not share that in their ideology or view so that's something to take into consideration and to think about right there it's just an interesting thing to point out let me know what you guys think anyway if you agree or disagree let me know in the comments section thanks for watching and god bless the old mary dominion may have defeated the empire but it has not defeated skyrim

Channel: NordicWarriorGaming

Views: 15,563

Keywords: Skyrim, Stormcloak, Win, Stormcloaks, Ulfric Stormcloak, Ulfric, Elenwen, Thalmor, wipes out, The Elder Scrolls, The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, The Elder Scrolls V, Bethesda, 2011, Xbox 360, Xbox One

Id: pPhkIz2Yfow

Length: 20min 35sec (1235 seconds)

Published: Sat Feb 06 2021