Board Thread:Lore Discussion/@comment-25343239-20150319182007/@comment-260563-20180323152622

The only reasons why the Dominion would be able to defeat the Stormcloaks is DUE to logistics and realism: the Thalmor are more well-equipped and have a strong grasp of magic that makes them the bane of Leeroy Jenkins-style Nordic armies like that of the Stormcloaks. If we judge things as if it was just pure fantasy, and nothing but fantasy, then the Stormcloaks will win, considering they're led by a guy with long-lost powers and they're fighting for a Divine. Talos would intervene and give the Stormcloaks their victory. But since the Elder Scrolls story doesn't run on that logic (otherwise, the Nine would have crushed the Dominion by the balls during the Great War because the Thalmor were the unjust aggressors) we have to look at realistic things like economics, manpower, and gains/losses in war.

Which is why the Dominion is screwed if they press their cause against the Empire: for the same reasons as to why the Stormcloaks will be screwed if they fight the Dominion alone: the numbers game isn't on their side. Just as the Stormcloaks can't fix Skyrim fast enough before the Thalmor attack due to a lack of coin, the same goes for the Thalmor whose Altmer birth rates are lower than the wealthy Empire, which can afford to raise and train men faster than the Elves. The Altmer sacrificed two armies for nothing, aside from a small uprising in eastern Skyrim that even the leaders of Whiterun know they can put down.

There is but one reason why the Dominion will triumph over the Stormcloaks, and it is the same reason why the Empire will triumph over the Dominion: Logistics. Logistics and economics. Skyrim under the Stormcloaks will be impoverished due to the lack of trade with other provinces and the deprivation of Imperial coin. Which means that they will be overrun by the Thalmor before the Empire can act, since attacking a non-Empire state is not violating the White-Gold Concordat. But at the same time, a wealthy Empire with a faster birth rate than the Elves, which can replace armies faster than the Altmer, will crush the Dominion, because the Altmer themselves as a whole can't reproduce fast enough, which was the reason as to why Queen Ayrenn founded the First Aldmeri Dominion in the first place. The Dominion may have devastated Hammerfell, but it doesn't serve the Dominion at all, considering their low birth rates mean that their losses on the field are much more catastrophic to their overall fighting power. With no military advantage or economic tribute, and with their other two provinces not serving at all in terms of manpower or wealth, the Dominion is stuck fighting using one province, whose birth rate is shit and which lost a good chunk of their armies in the last war.

Translation: They're boned. ACCEPT IT. That's what "unbiased fact" looks like.