Skyrim is the birthplace of the empire. It makes total sense that a lot of Nords do not want to give up on that idea, even if the empire as it once was doesn't exist anymore. For a jarl to turn the tables on that, even with the Thalmor prowling the land, is a pretty big feat.

And, what makes him a megalomaniac but the emperor not? Both desire control over Skyrim and believe they are the best one to rule, both are willing to shed blood for that. I don't know what ulterior motive you're referring to. You can put it in [ spoiler ] [/ spoiler ] tags if you prefer.

Much of the propaganda being put about by the Empire and its supporters is just too facile by half. It smacks of rationalization. Excuses. It's more "scare tactic" language.

It's easy to talk about "biding our time." For what? "Until the Empire is stronger...." Yeah, right. Go on, pull the other one.

But the Thalmor are biding their time too. They're also getting stronger. They are actively seeking to undermine any sense of unity or self-determination that the people of Skyrim might have or develop. And to that end, they have spies and active agents in Skyrim.

But most importantly, they are determined to wipe men off the face of Tamriel...or so they say.

Will the Empire "bide its time" until the AD is powerful enough to actually accomplish that goal?

Or will they suddenly grow a pair and, and...and what?! If the AD is powerful enough to exterminate all men, will the Empire be strong enough to stop them? If so, it will be the first time in human experience...real or imagined...that such a scenario bears fruit.

So put the extermination bit aside...it can't be true, can it? Surely, no one could be so cruel. It must be a mistake.

That kind of thinking is la-la land self-delusion...all in the service of appeasemant and expediency and preserving their own privileged positions as long as possible. Unfortunately, we do have many RL examples of just such perfidy.

The Stormcloaks want to revoke the WGC and drive the Thalmor and all AD agents out of Skyrim.

The Thalmor want to wipe out human beings. The Empire is, willingly or unwittingly (more fool them), aiding and abetting that enterprise.

The contrast is startling...if you just look at it square on.

BTW, William Wallace didn't have the full support of the Scottish people either...despite the movie representation (and, sorry, there were no...zero...kilts at the time either).

Nor did George Washington, have the full support of his people at the time of the American Stormcloak Rebellion.

But Washington wasn't acting alone, and he wasn't even the leader of the revolution. He was the military leader appointed by the Continental Congress, a collection of all of the colonies agreeing that it was time to fight the British for their independence. Washington also never committed and act of regicide either.

Ulfric acted on his own, killed the High King, and started a civil war. This is more akin to Virginia saying America is independent and then attacking Georgia because it was loyal to the crown.

He didn't act alone. In the Markarth Incident he was leading a militia, these men were imprisoned with him, and the men following him were the ones who started using his name as their moniker. The shopkeeper in Falkreath says he met a lot of people from all over while fighting with the Stormcloaks for several years- meaning the rebellion was going on before Torygg died, and again, Ulfric was not alone. Skyrim's Rule also refers to growing anti-imperial sentiment.

That militia had nothing to do with the Civil War or Torygg's death though. They were trying to take the Reach back and reincorporate it into Skryim after the Forsworn took it.

Just out of curiosity, what in-game evidence shows that the rebellion happened before Torygg's death? Everything I've seen points to it being the catalyst for the Civil War. Otherwise, Ulfric would never have gone to Solitude in the first place to challenge Torygg for the throne if he was already in open rebellion.

The issue of Ulfric challenging Torygg to a duel is a red herring. For all the, to me, spurious reasons people might find it reprehensible, Torygg was the High King. If the dual was illegal, Torygg had the authority to have Ulfric arrested just for making the suggestion. He could even simply have said "no."

That he accepted the challenge suggests that he did not, in fact, consider it illegal...to the contrary he must have felt that either his authority or his ego was hanging in the balance . That or his judgement was so poor that Ulfric did indeed do all of Skyrim a service in eliminating him.

And if the dual was legal then it was not the heinous act people want to make it out to be--it was in fact, in keeping with the culture and the way that such societies often resolve political disputes.

That's the way of warlords ...and they're all like that in Skyrim. If you want a democracy you first have to smith ballot boxes.

Beyond that trying to compare Ulfric and Washington is good as far as it goes but Ulfric and Washington live(d) in entirely different cultural milieus and there is no comparison at that level.

At the simple level of leading a fragmented and seemingly hopeless rebellion against a tyrannical and oppressive foreign power, the anology holds. Especially when you consider that against all odds, contrary to the advice and wishes of a sizable percentage of his countrymen...who liked and would have preferred the security of the British...Washington won.

And BTW, Washington is often portrayed as arrogant. Esp. by people who disliked him.

If nothing else, it's inspirational enough that all the nail biters and Timorous Tillies might take heart.

I actually missed that too for the longest time.

Talk to Hadvar about who Ulfric is. He'll tell you the stormcloak rebellion's been going on for years. Torygg's death is what sparked the Empire to send Tullius in.

And how do you suppose they reacted to being imprisoned by the jarl to kiss up to the Thalmor?

As I said, the shopkeeper in Falkreath says he met a lot of people fighting with the Stormcloaks for a couple years. A loading screen says Torygg's death was "recent."

Ulfric's dialogue indicates the catalyst was the Markarth Incident. I assume the moot that Sybille Stentor refers to, where Ulfric speaks out about independence and Torygg supposedly admires him silently for it, happened after his release from prison when he took over his father's seat as jarl.

It wasn't so much a militia as it was Ulfric's private army. As one of the NPCs puts it, the Stormcloaks are his private army that he's been using to further his ambitions for years. He never really got anywhere, though, until after he killed Torygg.

Anyways, the Markarth Incident is interesting. There's multiple sides to it. From the dossier...


The question that raises, then, is how the Markarth Incident helped the Thalmor. For an answer to that, we can look at what Alvor says at the beginning of the game. According to Alvor, after the White-Gold Concordant was signed, nothing really changed. Everyone still had their shrines to Talos in their homes and still worshiped him. That changed with the Markarth Incident. Ulfric forced the issue, making it impossible for the Empire to continue to turn a blind eye to it. It also gave the Thalmor the excuse they needed to begin intervening and carrying people off in the middle of the night.

There's really only one outcome that would come from that. I'm sure the Thalmor knew it, too. It created a lot of hostility and distrust against the Empire. Of course, then Ulfric takes this situation that he had a direct hand in creating, and leverages it to gain support for his ambitions. And yet, as I said before, he still didn't get anywhere until he decided to kill Torygg.

I clearly stated in the next paragraph that there would be divisions on both sides, specifically mentioning the Grey Manes and Battle Born. If you bothered to look, I also included the Dark elves who are clearly anti-Ulfric to the total Wind helm population, a group that represents 13 out of the 50 NPCs in Windhelm, and also include non-Nords like the Argonians who makeup another 6. If you want to do a more complete headcount via interview for every NPC in the game be my guest, but at least finish reading what I said so I don't have to repeat myself.

Lets' also avoid the nasty unpleasantries that you try to inject into this, it's beneath many of us i'm sure.

I took that more that that was the catalyst for Ulfric seeking Independence. It's the incident that caused him to give up on the Empire, but not the one that made him go to war. If the Markarth incident had been what directly led to the war, I doubt Ulfric would have attended the Moot or even let Torygg assume the throne without challenging him right away.

Assuming you're right, and the Markarth Incident led directly to Ulfric's rebellion, that speaks even less for his cause, since he's clearly been at this whole war for independence for a while now and he still doesn't have the will of the people behind him, nor has he been able to remove his enemies from power.



I interpreted that as the Stormcloaks have been rallying against the WGC, Thalmor, and Empire in general for the past few years, but they hadn't really come to blows yet. Sort of like the American colonists talking about independence before the Revolutionary War broke out. They discussed the notion and gained support, but the war didn't start with that.

I took that quote to be more that they were just banging drums and trying to get recruits and support, but weren't actively killing their kinsmen for disagreeing with them until Ulfric decided to commit regicide.

And... that differs from a militia how? Only because you want to use the concept perjoratively. Igmund refers to it as a militia.

I don't think it's difficult. They wanted to sow chaos so that they can try to profit from it, as the dossier says. Whether they actually engineered the Markarth Incident or not (they have a history of taking credit for the moon, literally) of course they're going to try to work unrest in Skyrim to their advantage. This is no big revelation. And they would have found an excuse one way or another- it's not like they really needed one. The empire wasn't going to deny them anything.

No it doesn't. "More join his cause every day." The fact that it's contested goes without saying- so are the empire's claims. It's funny that you want to use the fact that he spoke out at a moot against him, when the usual criticism is that he's ruthless and didn't even try to change things within the system.

I consider him speaking out against the empire part of his rebellion, not just hostilities. His dialogue seems pretty clear to me, that Markarth was the penny drop for him- he talks about having to send his father's eulogy by letter ("such is the love of Titus Mede for his subjects") and of returning after his release to a city in mourning and anger, crying out for justice. Those are fighting words, whether or not actual hostilities broke out right away.

I think that's going a little to the extreme. The Altmer student at the College of Winterhold speaks out against her instructors, the arch-mage, and the master wizard, but I'd hardly consider her to be in rebellion. I guess it's similar to when you say a kid rebels against his/her parents, but that's not same thing as rebelling in regards to areas rebelling against their leaders.

Wars don't just break out when guns go off- they can brew gradually and can break out at the diplomatic table as well. You think Ulfric was not serious about independence when he spoke out at a moot "in terms just short of treason"?

I don't really understand what your argument is anyway.

I don't think wars start until opposing sides start killing each other/declare their intentions to do so. Until then, there isn't a war going on, only the building blocks to war. Most wars are slowly built up over time, but that doesn't mean the war is started with words. If it was, the Russian Revolution would be considered to have started back in feudal society, not during World War I.

Ulfric calling for secession isn't war. It's sedition, it's spreading dissent, it can actually be treasonous, but it's not an act of war. Neither is that priest in Whiterun's speech calling the Nords to rise up and fight the Empire.

I provided a headcount in every hold and assigned them based on the hold’s allegiance of the Jarl, who in every hold represents the disposition of the majority of people. As I mentioned divisions exist in every hold, such as the Grey manes of Whiterun and the non-Nords of Windhelm, so if you’re honestly rejecting my findings out of a non-bias nature, then I’m not sure what you want. Unless you go door to door with all of the 984 NPCs in Skyrim for an interview, and bring an audio recording of that interview before a grand counsel of 100 Grey Beard Elders for deliberation before that side that person supports is agreed upon, then I’m not seeing a better method.

I’m also not sure what you mean by your Whiterun grievance, I included two imperial results, one that included Whiterun and one that excluded Whiterun in its tally. My reasoning for this being that regardless of the side Dragonborn supports, Ulfric attacks Whiterun, who in turn sides with the Empire as a result, part of the natural evolution of the situation that has no input from Dovahkiin.

I’ve already addressed the division problem, as I originally did in my original post that no one seemed to finish reading. Separating the Grey manes would undoubtedly lead to more complete examination that is far more complex, and would include things like the Dark Elves in Windhelm who represent a lot larger chunk of population than the Greymanes. It would also lead to the inclusion of the towns and villages, of which the Empire has quite a few more of. My evaluation was a simple one that took over an hour to complete, and as I’ve said if you wish for a more in-depth and precise anolysis, then be my guest to do so. However, the results speak for themselves, the Stormcloaks are a minority opinion in Skyrim.

I hope I don’t need to explain why I’m not going to respond to the Forsworn comment, let alone the far more absurd Ulfric one.

Why are you even arguing this? We already gave you a couple instances in game where people said they were fighting as Stormcloaks for a couple years. Torygg's death was not the start of the rebellion.

Ulfric's duel with Torygg was a legitimate one in accordance to Nordish customs. It was of course a calculated political move on Ulfric's part, he knew the high King would have to accept a duel he had no chance of winning and in doing so he took out the most important pro-Empire Nordin Skyrim. He also arguably abused the Voice in such a duel, although it's still highly unlikely that a boy-King would stand a chance against someone like Ulfric regaurdless. It was a legitimate duel, but hardly one fought out of honor. The onlookers in Solitude are likely just viewing the situation in a bias way, much like had the reverse had taken place in Winterhold, I have no doubt the population would have seen it as an assassination of Ulfric.

Propaganda aside, ~Insert opposing propaganda~

Come now, thats simply classic Stormcloak rhetoric. An unbais argument would admit both sides have faults, the Empire made a series of really bad calls and are suffering the natural dissent a lost war entails, while the Stormcloaks are being incredibly short sighted in regaurds to the Thalmor, with Ulfric using popular dissent to raise his station to that of High King.

Well if that's the case then the duel is entirely a moot point. Ulfric was already a traitor to the Empire and Skyrim before his duel with Torygg (which I view as perfectly legitimate if cheaply executed), and the Imperial Legion is well within their rights to pursue him anyway, since he's an enemy of the state even without the regicide.

If the High King was letting the Empire throw its weight around and letting the two duke it out as it wasn't really his business (which I have to assume he was because why else would Ulfric walk into Solitude on his own? If Torygg and Solitude viewed him as their enemy he'd never have done that), killing him only flares neutral members of the country against Ulfric, as he's killing someone uninvolved to prove a point.

If this is true, then not only is Ulfirc a bad leader because rather than fighting his enemy (the Thalmor) he fights someone else who view the Thalmor as an enemy and bleed both of their resources and giving their mutual foe time to build up their resources without fear of war, but to strike at his now enemy (the Empire) he kills people who aren't even fighting against him.

None of that makes sense to me.

Okay?

The purpose of the duel with Torygg was to force the issue and take out the imperial puppet. Ulfric had a goal- to gain Skyrim's independence and rid it of imperial interference. Peaceful means were accomplishing nothing, so he made the next move.

Whether the rebellion is treason to the empire or a higher loyalty to Skyrim is entirely based on your POV.

Torygg was useless. He was an empty chair, just as Elisif is. If Sybille is right and he secretly wanted independence while outwardly giving speeches aobut how great the empire is, it just shows how feckless he was. I don't sense that Ulfric had any malice towards him, but he needed to be out of the way.

hats off to Elven, despite being ganged up on he/she has really just dished out some hardcoe stuff. I dont take sides in the civil war, but he/shes changing my mind, the imperial cause seems to be pretty legitimate

I'm not disagreeing that the killing of the high King was the technical start of the civil war, but I do think it was the symbolic start. A similar situation as to how months and even years of unofficial fighting had taken place prior to the CSA attack on Sumter, yet the battle of that fort is considered the official starting point of the war. Wars are almost never planned on the short-term, even seemingly overnight wars have had generals planning 'what if' plans for years as a precaution. The Us even had a plan against Canada (UK) until the mid 1920s despite a pretty solid relationship. Ulfric had secessionist thoughts well before the moot, it was just in the open by then. I belive he had the groundwork being laid since the Markarth incident when he clearly thumbed his noise as the Imperials and lied to the people about the lack of Imperial support or action. He was clearly building up anti-Imperial sentiment, whilst also building up support for himself, especially when one examines the extent of his actions post recapture when he built pretty massive ties with the powerful interest in the region.

Ulfric might be many things, but he isn't stupid when it comes to strategizing his ambitions, he is very cunning and talented.



Thanks..and i'm a she. xD



I've never came across anything that said he was an ineffective King (perhaps not a legendary one either), but I do suspect as a very young King he had a bit of learning to do. Elisif is also not a bad regent/Queen, she is just young and inexperienced. Listen to her hold court, I got the distinct impression that she wants what is best for her people, yet it's pretty clear that she is thrust into a new position and doesn't really know what to do yet (understandably so since she is a just few days on the job). Make note of her initial attitude in ruling, and then look at how she conducts herself at the peace negotiations later, it's a remarkable change of tone.

We could get into a history debate on William Wallace, but that would be a digression (as was the temporary rabbit hole George Washington led us down). I think you understand why I used William Wallace. In the realm of popular opinion, Wallace was nearly Messianic (excluding the self-serving nobles who used his movement for their own personal gain then comfortably threw him under the bus when they achieved it). Ulfric doesn't have the same *popular* support that Wallace did.

This is so contrary it's astonishing.

Who is short-sighted? The Empire colludes with a foreign power whose ultimate aims are to wipe men off the face of Tamriel. And the Empire knows that...because the Thalmor have said as much.

It's near-as-nevermind delusional. And that's part of the problem...or my problem...with the Empire and its supporters.

The Empire thinks it can play for time. To what end?

How can Skyrim and the Empire gain enough power...while simultaneously leaking it away to the AD by allowing agents and armed forces to patrol Skyrim...when it cannot convince a large segment of the population that its actions were (and are) anything but self-serving when it sold them and their children into thralldom rather than give up their own immediate comforts and political power.

Power is relative...if the Empire is using the WGC to consolidate power and rebuild their morale and forces (and there's no evidence it is working), so is the Thalmor.

What's more the Thalmor have, and are collecting, vital strategic information about the disposition and status of Empire (and Stormcloak) forces that the Empire cannot match. In the long term...because of the Empire's self-satisfied delaying tactics....the Thalmor will be able to counter, and trump, every move, every force the Empire pushes forward.

Ulfric wants to rid Skyrim of the Thalmor.

The Thalmor want to exterminate Stormcloaks, the Empire, Nords, Redguards, Bretons.

Ulfric stands for the people...whether for political or personal reasons...because that's where his base is. He has no other.

The Empire stands for/represents the Thalmor. Simply because they are caught in a web of their own making, one that cannot be escaped without nullifying the WGC...which would immediately force the confrontation they are so fearful of. Might as well join the Stormcloaks once you start contemplating making things right. The Empire is effectively a client state. As such it cannot represent anyone else.

I have to stick up for Maven on a single point: She let her own son be sent to jail for murder, saying that the Black-Briar name and their family's status does not make him exempt from the law. Considering that she could have just bribed the Jarl, the guards or the Thief Guild to bust out the guy, it's kind of cool.