User blog comment:Zippertrain85/"Why the Empire Should Prevail Over the Stormcloaks" refuted (part 1)/@comment-11532953-20131210060926/@comment-11532953-20131212114947

I thank thee for continuing to humour me to my ramblings, now:

The point of soldier numbers to continue the great war for the elves being hindered by reproduction rates was refuted by my point on the clear differences in available resources. Obviously the elves did not muster every able bodied male, female and child to wage war on the empire, the invasion force was merely an army of the Dominion. You seem to think that Cyrodil was the only place invaded by the Thalmor. It wasn't. Hammerfel was invaded simultaneously and later more arrived to occupy all the territories of the Empire including Skyrim. Large troop forces were also present in the regions of Valenwood and Elswere which had ceeded to Aldemeri control. We must also account for the defending force of the Summerset isles. As a final note on the sheer differences between numbers, there is no evidence suggesting the elven fleet that had existed in previous ages no longer existed. We would be justified in assuming that the elven invasion force into mainland Tamriel did not swim there, thus we can assume that the Aldemeri battle fleet still exists.

One final note which I neglected to address, Galmar Stone-Fist who tells you that the stormcloaks don't want 'just mercenaries and average joes' as soldiers is obviously lying to you (probably because of his sentimental patriotic bias for the Nord image) because of in-game canonical revelations where farmers become stormcloak soldiers, and because of Stormcloak philosophy, which sees any Nord as being honour bound to support the cause of the Stormcloaks. This philosophy is centered around the image of the 'True Nord,' as portrayed by the Stormcloaks in their manner.