It was always taught to me as one-third loyalists, yes.


Out of context semantics doesnt substitute for an argument. Cyrodill is considered a 'province' too.

Hell, if we're going to base our actions and beliefs on the linguistic roots of the word 'province', BRB, gotta go overthrow the evil overlords oppressing me from Ottawa.

That's how every state that is not a democracy works. If Ulfric becomes High King, the other Jarls will have no say in what he does either.
The Empire (not the Imperials) have always recruited their legionaries from all provinces, including Skyrim.
In the end, of course not all is perfect between the Empire and its provinces. But Skyrim is not the poor oppressed and conquered land that some (not necessarily you) try to make it. It had been up top in the Empire with a considerable amount of self-administration for centuries. Only a few years ago, some Nords suddenly discovered that they had been oppressed all along.

What I have tried to stress is that for someone new to TES games like myself. Playing Skyrim would lead you to think that it has been at some point in the past conquered militarily by the empire. The empire is presented in the game as a force of occupation just consider a few points.
One The empire is obviously at least loosely based on Rome.
Two the natives of Skyrim are based on the more barbarian tribes that Rome put a lot of effort in to attempting to conquer.
Three It comes with a map that says the province of Skyrim.
Four The natives are staging a war to push out the empire and establish a free independent Skyrim.
With only those things to go on you have to say that the civil war is not a civil war but a native uprising against its oppressive conquers. Having read what people have posted its clear that its not quite that simple.

Talos, Hjalti, Tiber, whatever you want to call him came to skyrim, as well as the rest of tamriel, and conquered it, uniting it in the empires name and ruling it, beginning the septim bloodline. The people who fight to worship him, fight to secede from what he created. this might actually have been avoided if the medes didn't take over, or if martin had a child.

I agree

Culturally there are similarities between real world history and The Elder Scrolls universe, but those shouldn't be taken as an indication of how things are in Tamriel, it's definitely complicated and hard to follow. The short answer is that Tiber Septim was a Nord, (or a Breton, or an imperial depending on your source, complicated) who conquered all of Tamriel and founded the Septim Dynasty later ascending to join the Divines as Talos. So Stormcloaks (and pretty much all Nords, even Imperial sympathizes, if you ask certain people) identify with Tiber Septim. They do not identify with the Mede Dynasty because it disowned Tiber Septim's ascension and thusly their cultural connection with the Empire. The Empire isn't viewed by the Stormcloaks as an occupying force, but as a weak and ineffective ruling body because they sold out on tradition to save their own skin. In fact I would go so far as to suggest that Skyrim is likely one of the only provinces that did not view the Empire as an occupying force, the elves certainly swing that way but not the Nords.

In any case it's not simply a war for autonomy either. I highly doubt that Ulfric would stop at securing Skyrim's independence if he won the conflict anyway, someone who strolls into the King's palace and literally shouts the king's head off doesn't just go home at the end of the war and start a family. He'd likely set his sights on building his own empire next.

The dialogue between General Tullius and Legate Rikke (second in command in the Legion, and a Nord) are rather interesting about what the loyalists think about the Empire and the rebellion. Rikke even goes as far as saying "Talos be with you" after Ulfric is slain.

Although shadowmane01 has a point in that Skyrim presents itself as a standard Roman-Britain or Roman-Germanic setting, with all it's connotations, at first sight.

Of course it's a civil war. Skyrim was around when the Empire was founded, it practically created it.

Civil war is a bit of an oxymoron, though. Wars aren't usually very civil.

Skyrim has its own laws and government, including a high king who is not an appointee of the Empire. Ulfric wants to gain control of the local government and change its policies, particularly the policy of remaining loyal to the Empire and its laws. Other citizens of Skyrim support the local government and its policies. The natives didn't start the war to throw the Empire out, but to rid Skyrim of a very unpopular law. Throwing out the Empire is coincidental. Citizens of Skyrim are warring against other citizens of Skyrim for the governance of Skyrim, which qualifies as a civil war. There is an uprising against the Empire too. The war can be viewed as both a civil war and as a war of independence. It is not a case of either one or the other.

lol, first impressions are often wrong aren't they?

I thought that Hadvar and Alvor's respective views on the war and the situation about Talos worship were also interesting. Hadvar says that even Imperial sympathizers continued to worship Talos in secret before tensions escalated. And Alvor makes it plain that the general belief among sympathizers is that Talos worship will be reinstated when the Thalmor are no longer a threat (that may be denial on his part, if I was an emperor I sure wouldn't be comfortable with my people worshipping the previous dynasty's founder, but that's beside th point).

I think the forsworn seem more like a British/Cltic/Germanic tribal culture than the Nords of Skyrim do, and Ulfric specifically oppresses them and their traditions in spite of his crusade against the Empire (and it is a crusade because the main focus is on the validity of a certain deity and the right to worship said deity).

And Nords seem closer to Scandanavians culturally but their connection to the empire makes them seem more like an ethnic group from northern Italy.

That wouldn't be a civil war though, it'd be a revolution. (See also : American Revolution)

As Jarl Balgruuf said "We Nords are the Empire it was built with Nord blood, Skyrim needs the empire just as much as the Empire needs Skyrim". Cant remember the exact quotation but it best description Ive heard of skyrim and the Nords relationship with the Empire.
The Founder of the Empire was a Nord Tiber Septim and the Septim line of Emperors were of Nord decent. There seems to be a 50/50 split among Nords who support the Empire and storm cloaks as well so this is defiantly a civil war most of the fighting is Nord against Nord!

I believe that Ulfric Stormcloak is an agent in the literal sense of following their orders, but in the sense that they forced all nords. into war with the signing of the White Gold Concordiate and the outlaw of worship of Talos. With the war, they can virtually move undetected in Skyrim. If the the Stormcloaks win the conflict, Highrock will be cut off of supplies from the Empire. They can't go through Skyrim do to anomosity towards the Stormcloaks, and the can't go through Hammerfell with supplies because they'd never get through the Desert in time to help Highrock. With Highrock cut off, Thalmoor can take Hammerfell. After the fall of the Redguard, the Thalmoor can move onto Highrock an just over power them with time. They can then retake Skyrim, the Thalmoor can then cut Cyrodil in half by assualting on four fronts: Valenwood, Elsweyr, Hammerfell, & Skyrim. And this all started with the outlaw of Talos worship.


If the Empire and the Stormcloaks stopped the Conflict outright, that would go badly for the Thalmoor. Their whole plan is on the Stormcloaks Winning this Particular war. If the fighting ceased, the empire would have a much better chance of defeatingr the Thalmoor.

I think that the loss of skyrim would probably mean the total collapse of the empire. All the recorces and men they invested into trying to crush the stormcloaks would cause economic and political disintegration. I think Ulfric is smart enough to see the dangers he would probably try to sing an alliance with Hammerfell also an immediate peace treaty with Cyrodill and alow trade route through skyrim to highrock. He may even try to march on the Imperial city and force the emperor to renounce the ban on talos in return Hammerfell and skyrim would rejoin the Empire. Would mean that skyrim and Hamerfell would become the dominant Human powers.

Not necessarily.
The war of American independence is also a revolution, as it brought a significant change, mostly political, with it, and it was to have a major influence on later political thought.
And it sounds more important, so Americans called it a revolution.
Not every war of independence or secession is a revolution, though. In fact, most are not.

It's a civil war, because It's Stromcloak Nords versus Imperial Nords. It maybe a revolution and a war of independence, but the act of conflict is still a Civil War, as it involves two sides of the same nation.

It's not that simple...In the Great War of the Fourth Era, Should have One, The Empire Beat the Thalmoor on almost Every theater of war. Even though the Empire should have won, They still agreed to the White Gold Concordiate even still. That's why Ulfric Stormcloak wants Skyrim to become independent. The final straw that drew the line was the outlaw of Talos. If that was not in the White Gold Concordiate, they would hate the Thalmoor but still be tolerant of The Empire.

That's not really true. The Nord high king is chosen by the moot and answerable to it, or at least he was, before the moot became just an opportunity to hobnob and confirm the jarl of Solitude/ emperor's choice for high king.

Not being sovereign in your own territory is oppressive. It's more like the Nords didn't mind so much until finally they did. The Stormcloaks are also contending that the Nords have let themselves become weak and dependent on outside coin and outside rule.

The Forsworn and Bretons in general seem pretty clearly Celtic inspired to me, with their French names and being magic users. I would put the Nords in the Germanic/ Norse inspired category (these are related by language and religion even if there were geographic and cultural differences). The conflict with the Forsworn is not really about ethnicity, though- it's about control of a mineral-rich border region. Germanics and Celts did fight over territory, too, despite both being oppressed/ occupied by the Romans, so this isn't inconsistent as far as the parallels go.

I disagree that the Stormcloak rebellion is a religious war. It has a religious element, but Ulfric's main beef is political sovereignty of the Nords. He rarely if ever brings up religious matters.

True, the Skyrim Conflict is not, by any means a religious conflict. However...that being said, The War between the Empire and Thalmoor is a completely religious war against Auriel and the Thalmoor vs Lorkhan and Man.

But he started the rebellion only for religious reasons - because the Empire prohibited Talos worship in Markarth. If not for that, we probably wouldn't have that whole mess. Both are connected, of course, but to ignore the religious side of this conflict doesn't do it justice.

Lord_Archaic: True, the Empire re-conquered the Imperial City and defeated the Thalmor invasion (mostly - in Hammerfell, the Redguards did it only *after* the Concordat was signed), but that's about it. They couldn't continue the war, and certainly not bring it into the Dominion itself. We can doubt, of course, if every part of the treaty was really necessary (most probably not), but they did need a peace agreement for the time being.

Ulfrics reason for starting the was is that he saw an opportunity to take power. The religious aspect of it is just the vehicle he is using it stirs the souls of his warriors. Im fine with that many great empires have been carved out by those with a thirst for power.

He never talks about Markarth in terms of Talos worship, but about the empire's betrayal of those who fought for it and Mede's callousness towards Skyrim's concerns. For him I think the religious element is a symptom of imperial interference in Skyrim rather than the main thing. You don't see him talking about putitng up Talos shrines in his conquered territory, for instance, but about establishing political control and a military build-up. Basically I think we agree that there are elements of both political and religious. I just disagreed with the idea that it is primarily a religious war.

No they didn't, The Thalmoor couldn't continue to wage a war on six fronts. If the Empire were to assault The Summerset Isles, the Thalmoor would be destroyed.

http://uesp.net/wiki/Skyrim:The_Great_War

Exactly, read this book.
Let me quote:
The Thalmor had the same 5 years. And they didn't have their homeland pillaged, their capital city burned down. The war took place almost entirely on Imperial soil; in the Dominion, nothing was plundered or destroyed.