Board Thread:Lore Discussion/@comment-72.74.78.209-20141019230536/@comment-24902649-20141206215635

72.74.78.185 wrote: Can we just stop talking about the duel. It doesn't mater weather or not the duel was illegal. Toryig was a puppet of the empire, who paid him a small fortune to get him to ratify the concordat. Doesn't he know that 90% of his population worships the god his boss is telling him to outlaw. Could he at least have said something? The fool deserved to be killed.

References for that payment? I don't remember hearing anything about it. I agree that he was a fool, and a puppet of the Thalmor, but Torygg didn't ratify the Concordat, the Emperor did. If he was paid to enforce it, it kinda means that you're stuck between the side that hates anything that's not Nordic, and the side that only cares about money and power.

Lovely choices.

In any case, the Nords could certainly hold their own against the Thalmor (for a while), until the rest of the Dominion finally decided to end it. Then Skyrim would be in pretty desperate need of some allies. Obviously the Redguards would show up, just for a chance to take a shot at the Dominion. I imagine that the Beast-Races might have something to say to the Aldmeri, as well. Also, lore-wise, it's generally the Redguards who are considered to be the best fighters on the battlefield by a long ways (they pushed the Dominion completely out of Hammerfell, at immense costs to both sides), so between all of them they could take on the Dominion, I should think.

As it is, if you pick the side of the Stormcloaks, sure, Skyrim would be temproarily weakened by the civil war. But the Empire is on the brink of collapse, barely able to manage itself, so if they took Skyrim, they'd gain what? More land that they couldn't possibly hope to control? Just what they need. There would be enough rebellion that I'm pretty sure they (decimated by the brutal resistance put up by the Stormcloaks) wouldn't even be able to maintain control over their Holds, much less rule effectively.