With all this talk of Imperial vs Stormcloak, it seems to me after reading some of the lore that the Empire is not much of an Empire anymore. For those more knowledgeable about the lore please correct me if I am wrong but from what I have read it seems that up until the start of the game the Empire only controls 3 of the 9 (Cyrodiil, High Rock, and Skyrim). Black Marsh and Elsweyr broke off shortly after the Oblivion crisis, the Arognians conquered Morrowind, The Aldmeri Dominion was formed after the union of Alinor (Summerset Isles) and Valenwood, and Hammerfell left the Empire after rejecting the White-Gold Concordat. If all this is true, then the civil war in Skyrim is pretty important to the survival of the Empire. A Stormcloak victory (canon) would probably mean the death of the Empire as only 2 provinces would be left, and High Rock would be totally cut off from Cyrodiil. Even if the Imperials defeat the Stormcloaks, the Empire is still in pretty bad shape.

Mede I may have kept the empire from totally collapsing, but he did nothing to ensure it stayed together unfortunately. He had about 100 years of doing nothing while provinces seceded all around him.

If the stormcloaks succeed, don't expect High Rock to remain empire. It'll secede almost assuredly in that case. Whether Cyrodiil and the remaining provinces can swallow their pride and team up against the thalmor afterwards remains to be seen.

Yes, but when the Roman Empire fell, things got bad in Europe for quite a while. So saying the fall is inevitable, doesn't mean it's OK to bring it about early. And we know that the Elves were barely stopped last time. Without Skyrim, the empire will certainly fall and you know what they say about Divide and Conquer.

Also Elsweyr is a client state of the Dominion, not independent

I hope my theory of the return of Talos (or someone mantling him) happens - I don't want to see the Empire fall completely! If Talos or someone mantling him were to return and restore the Empire, things would be better!

it is pretty obvious that the Empire is in bad shape, but I do liek to think that it could have been worse if it wasn't for the

I would like to disgress about that, it's not like he went sitting on his ass doing nothing, I think he and his successor(s?) did a bang up job keeping the Empire afloat despise internal conflits, trahisons and other dark secrets, that and being able to face the Aldmeri Dominion, which has a superior force in every aspect.
If it wasn't for the Mede I bet the Thalmor would be rolling all over Cyrodiil a long time ago.

Now the question is, since Emperor Mede II is dead, who is goign to succeed him and what will become of teh Empire.

There is literally no action taken by mede I after 4e43 until his death and Mede II's takeover in 4e168. He had 120 years to fix the problems or at least attempt something.

As for the emperor's successor, looks like the elder council gets to decide. Seems that they have a say in how succession occurs.(Given Armaund's dialogue to you)

The empire is dead.

You can get the truth from the horses mouth when you finish the stormcloak quest:

Tulllius: What if I surrendered?
Ulfric: The Empire I knew would never have surrendered.
Tullius: That Empire is dead.

Those three lines pretty much summed up the situation up for me: a demoralized, morally bankrupt empire, bereft of the fighting spirit that once guided it. And a challenger who wants to take the fight to the Thalmor.

So your basically saying that nothing happened during those 120 years? What, the Aldmeri, the politicians, the secrets organisations, all of them just vanished during all that time? And during that time Mede just went sitting on his couch drinking the TES variation of a Pina Colada?
Somehow I just don't buy it, maybe there isn't any book or lore telling us what happened during that time, but that doesn't mean nothing happened.

I would like to think those years were there kinda like the "Cold War" of our history, a lot of conflicts but hidden from the public eye.

That is because the Septim line is gone (as far as we know). Once that line died, the Empire died. In my view there is no Empire, just a group of political b!st!rds trying to lay claim to something that no longer exists. You can say your an Empire, but being an Empire is totally different.

If a Septim is found and is claimed Emperor, then the Empire will return, but until then, its dead.

I have two theories: Dominion will rule whole Tamriel in TES VI or we'll see an expansion for Skyrim where Dragonborn and Blades are fighting against the Thalmor and gains freedom for nations of men.

The Argonians conquered the southern half of Morrowind; above that it's functionally independent. The Imperials plan to use Riften to invade.

I find how some people seem to glorify hereditary rule on these forums a bit amusing.

Pelagius was a Septim also. He was their Caligula. There are no more Septims. Martin was the last and he was a bastard son of Uriel. Problem with royal families is the inbreeding that eventually occurs, and how they become out of touch with the general population. But this is a fantasy world where normal physics don't even apply. Not to mention that orcs can speak perfectly normally with undershot jaws.

But I digress. The Empire is dead. It was forecast as dead at the time the Nevarine went into Red Mountain to defeat Dagoth Ur for the second time and end the ash storms that spread corpus. The source of that forecast? Talos as Wulf when he gave you that lucky coin.

Time to try something different.

No. Ulfric and his likes want to fight the thalmor unltimately. The Empire failed to keep them at bay, so its up to more competent people now. Even without the Empire, I doubt the devs would allow the Thalmor to destory our favorite fantasy planet

Ulfric is power-hungry, but I wouldn't say he's all that competent. Afterall, his real enemy is the Thalmor and he's managed to get into a war with people who should be on his side...a war he chose to start, mind you. Of course, the Thalmor conditioned him to do stupid things like that, but that's my point.

Oh no, we have plenty of info on what the thalmor were up to. Just nothing of note by the empire, except that in 4e168 Mede II inherited a terrible military and a generally run down empire. There are no conflicts between the empire and anything after 4e43.

That just it, the Empire and being competent no longer can be said in the same sentence. It's like oil and water.

You did not see Martin run off with his tail tucked between his legs when sh*t hit the fan, nor did he come back and say "Hey, lets sign a treaty with Mankar Camoron that stated "You have full authority to pillage and burn the land."

The Empire has lost its balls and become eunuchs.

Not saying Ulfric is competent for Rule. He's very competent to lead a victory against the thalmor. His willingness to have a presence on the battlefield is inspiring.

I'd say Brunwulf Free-winter is the most suitable to be high king, he's most fair in Rule. But Ulfric will be high king, not forever but Ulfric is paving the way for a much more interesting Elder Scrolls

I don't see how Ulfric is competent to lead a victory against the Thalmor. Again, instead of uniting people to fight them and raising popular support to fight them, he's divided all of Skyrim and got them fighting each other. This is despite the fact pretty much all of Skyrim hates the Thalmor. He's led an absolutely terrible fight against the Thalmor, failing at the very onset by instead fighting friends and potential allies and not the Thalmor themselves. This just weakens the eventual forces that Ulfric would eventually help bring to bear against the Thalmor and further makes future cooperation with the Empire and Empire-friendly groups far more difficult. It wasn't necessary either, not to fight the Thalmor. It was only necessary for his desire to become High King -- which apparently he views as overly important, which is why I say he's power-hungry. Others in the game note his power-hungry nature as well, on both sides of the conflict.

He seems like a fine tactical commander, but I'm not impressed with his strategic abilities, especially ones not directly concerned with military movement and engagements. As a leader of any sort of government, he's a pretty blatant failure.

Edit: Regarding what is interesting, I think there are still a lot of interesting possibilities while leaving the Empire intact. There are entire continents to explore, for one. I'm not sure destroying the Empire makes things all that interesting from the perspective of the one person you control in TES games.

Evil guys are always more interesting, not saying that I would want Ulfric succeed though.

How has Ulfric Stormcloak failed?

First off, im not immensly wrapped up in the civil war thing, but I lean toward anyone who wants his people to be Independent from an opressor, Empire (Thalmor).
Other than letting a few nord bandits walk around, the guy really pisses excellence. I'd rather have that than letting some thalmor inquisition grabbing innocent people and making them dissapear. If the Empire would be allowed more power the thalmor's influence on the Empires actions itself would swell.

So the moral of the story is, Ulfric ain't so bad.

wtf.. The official canon is that the Stormcloaks won? Ulfric probably couldn't beat the Thalmer, but he and the Stormcloaks have one things the Empire doesn't anymore; balls.

Spoiler:

Remember that the Emperor has been assassinated (Canon?). This could open up room for someone that can unite Temriel and destroy those elves.

EDIT: The Empire also has one thing that I think is the reason they are the only force able to defeat the Thalmer; any race is accepted and even honored to fight for the legion. The Thalmer can't be beaten with ONLY Nords. It's a whole continent with numerous races that all benefit from their own unique attributes. The Orcs are among the best warriors in Tamriel and control some of the best mines in Skyrim! They even honor the chance to fight for the legion.

I'm calling it: Orcs save Skyrim.

I think you're misinterpreting. If Skyrim breaks away THEN the empire is dead. If the empire wins, it has a little more life.

And given Ulfric's connection to the Thalmor and their ability to hold it over his head, I doubt seriously if he would be willing to launch any kind of military engagement on them (unless they attacked directly). Except they'll polish off the remaining bits of the empire first. The Thalmor NEED Ulfiric to break away and once you get a little ways into the main quest you will find out why they need him doing this.

My comment on his failure is that of basic strategy. His enemy is the Thalmor, pretty much all humans hate them. Rather than focus on fighting the Thalmor he's instead started a war that will weaken the enemies of the Thalmor no matter who wins. This is an unnecessary war. That's a failure, and a pretty basic failure. The only reason why'd he do that is stupidity or because he desires the title of High King so much. Heck, the High King's Court Wizard, who practically knew him since birth, thought there was a better than decent chance that he High King would join in leaving the Empire and going against the Thalmor. Rather than even TALK about that with the High King, Ulfric challenged and killed him. Note, that he could have talked first and only challenged if necessary, if one thinks a challenge was a good idea at all.

Obviously a better strategy would be forming a covert resistance against the Thalmor, striking Thalmor targets within the Empire and working to unite popular and official positions to fighting off Thalmor influences. It's not like this would necessarily be very hard. Empire forces HATE the Thalmor and they don't like the treaty either, but it isn't like there was much of a choice at the time.

Fighting oppressors is certainly a good thing, but the Empire isn't the oppressor here. They were forced into a treaty with the Thalmor, who are the occupying force. Of course, they weren't occupying Skyrim at all before the rebellion and Talos worship was banned in name only before the rebellion started and the Thalmor used that as an excuse to come into Skyrim. There's a decided LACK of fighting the actual oppressors here, and instead a focus on fighting other natives of Skyrim and deposing popular and good leaders because they don't side with the Stormcloaks. So it isn't like the Stormcloaks are all about giving the people what they want...the eventual goal isn't freedom for everyone, but Ulfric as High King and people who support him replacing all the Jarls who don't.

In some respects, Ulfric's heart is in the right place. But his methodology is crap on many levels.