Board Thread:Lore Discussion/@comment-30011802-20170217032502/@comment-26893431-20170329135155

ZhugeQuanqiang wrote: Ottoman Hold wrote: I'd like to jump in here...

1) That's irrelevant. If I recall correctly, he's talking to Ulfric when he says that line. There's nothing political about it. And if you mean the Dragonborn witnessing it, that also doesn't mean anything, as half the time they are already with the Stormcloaks.

3) I believe Jauffre is saying that your overestimating the amount of damage the Stormcloaks alone could do. It would ultimately do more harm than good for the Empire, since they'll be sandwiched by the Dominion.

4) I'm sure there are more spies, but Jauffre is also right is saying that you can't prove that there are more than two. After all, the Thalmor agents walking around the providence probably get a bulk of the information already.

5) There's no reason to argue about fingers, in all honesty, because it doesn't relate enough to the thread, allegory/comparison or not. If that is the case, the claims that the Stormcloaks getting slaughtered is not relevant as well. Both sides had lost soldiers. Stormcloaks in an unspecified place. Imperials in trying to take Winterhold.

The amount of damage the Stormcloaks can do? That depends on how well they fix the problem of Skyrim becoming poorer and poorer over the years under the Imperial rule. Particularly after the Oblivion Crisis. At least 2 to 3 towns and cities had disbanded, the cities were impoverished compared to Arena's time.

There is an issue thinking that there is only 2 spies and that having Uniformed Troops walking around can prove information that can satisfy the Thalmor's needs.

I've already stated. Number of fingers doesn't matter because based off my arguments on the size of Skyrim according to the lore, you'll need at least a 25-man agency to provide classified information for the Thalmor leaders to make an accurate judegement based on the situation. I wasn't even talking about an army of spies. If there's over 90,000 spies, they're not spies, that's a Division.

Skyrim becoming poor has nothing to do with the Empire, if you actually paid attention, it was the Empire which gave chests of gold to the Jarls of Skyrim after the Great War. The Empire doesn't grab Skyrim's money, Skyrim has its own coffers.

Judging on the information that they have, it's very limited to spy-work and more common sense than anything. Name anything in either of the 3 dossiers that would imply that there are more spies needed in Skyrim. They have records on 3 people, Ulfric, who Elenwen herself was master to, Delphine, whose records are mainly from the Great War itself and Esbern, whose info they obtained through Gissur.

Those patrols march through all of Skyrim, they are more than enough to write down what's going on in a Hold and how it's faring.