Board Thread:Lore Discussion/@comment-25343239-20150319182007/@comment-121511-20150321023700

Harold Burned-Mane wrote: Hjalti clearly spent plenty of time in Skyrim, as when he was 20 he was leading a large force of Nords against the Reachmen. They wouldn't let an outsider lead them into battle. Also there is actually nothing pointing at Hjalti being a Breton, people just assume that. Just because he was born in Alcaire that doesn't make him a Breton. A Nord can be born in High Rock, so can a Redguard, an Imperial, a Dunmer, etc. Being born in High Rock doesn't mean anything.

The Stormcloaks are guerrilla fighters, which is why they don't usually participate in open combat. That is common amongst militias. As for the veterans, I was just pointing out that not all of them were inexperience citizens. As for the Hold guards, the same can be said about the Stormcloak Holds. We never see any Rift, Pale, Winterhold or Eastmarch guards fighting the Legion. All we see are Stormcloaks, so mentioning the Hold guards on the Imperial side isn't a valid point. (Yes there is a difference between Eastmarch guards and Stormcloaks, their armor may look the same but they are two different factions.)

I don't recall any official mention but the game makes it pretty clear. With all the talk from the Dunmer at Raven Rock about how House Hlaalu, the biggest Imperial supporter, is no longer considered a Great House by the Dunmer and the fact that their members are in exile. How the Imperials talk about invading Morrowind. How House Redoran, which doesn't really like the Empire, is in charge now. Everything points to them being independent. The Dunmer don't hold any love for the Empire now.

Anyway I would give my two cents about the subject but I've talked this to death on other forums. All I will say is that the Empire wouldn't be able to defeat the Dominion when they still have Thalmor running around their territories and causing trouble to thin their numbers and essentially bleeding the Empire till the Dominion's army invades. The Empire can't regain its strength while this is happening either, as they are constantly undermined by the Thalmor and as General Tullius mentions they have been dealing with more than one rebellion (He says he has gotten good at dealing with rebels, meaning that he has experience putting them down. Which suggests that the Stormcloaks weren't the first to rise up against the Empire after the Great War.). The Empire also won't have any outside help, both Hammerfell and Morrowind dislike the Empire for things they did, or failed to do, in the past.

The Stormcloaks on the other hand, while they will have trouble at first as they would need to change from a militia to a proper army, have the potential to be able to defeat the Dominion. Stormcloak ideology is very similar to that of the Redguards (namely the Forebears) and House Redoran, and unlike the Empire they don't have a poor relationship with those factions. Meaning that they could possibly ally with them in the future. They have also shown interest in allying with the Bretons, who might chose them over the dying Empire if they win the Civil War. That already gives them a numerical advantage, as it would be 4 provinces fighting instead of the 3 the Empire, if they win the Civil War, would have. With all of Skyrim's resources at their disposal they could turn themselves into a significant military power and their location gives them some safety against the Dominion as there is no direct route to them that doesn't pass by or through another province.

For all those reasons and a few more, that I am too lazy to list (if you want to know them just search around for other Civil War discussions people have talked about this to death), I believe that the best suited to defeat the Dominion are the Stormcloaks. The Empire is already a lost cause at this point.

The point is that there is a lack of information regarding Hjalti's background: the only thing that is known for certain is that he was born and raised in High Rock. It is an assumption that he is a Nord or a Breto-Nord, and Nords are not the only people to possess descriptive surnames. It is not far-fetched at all that a Breton would be leading Nords in battle when he was appointed General by their King: Cuhlecain himself was no Nord, and was of Colovian stock.

On the next point, your statements are not contradictory to mine: things are simplified. Hold Militias fight on both sides, but the Civil War is portrayed solely as a conflict between Stormcloaks and Legionnaires for the sake of simplicity. That said, in-game classifications are in-game classifications: the Stormcloaks are the Militia of Eastmarch, and the Town Guards are thus Stormcloaks. That they wear the same uniforms should be evidence enough of this. While the Haafingar Militia clearly work closely with the Legion, they are also clearly their own organization answering to the Thanes and Jarl of Haafingar. And militant groups do not engage in guerrilla warfare when there isn't a need for it: guerrilla warfare by definition is waged against numerically superior opponents. That the Stormcloaks are guerrillas indicates that the fighting forces that fight under the Imperial banner outnumber them in most cases.

On the Dunmer, I'm not denying that they are independent de facto: whether de jure or not is what I remain unsure of. There's a reason I omitted mention of them when discussing the Dominion's carving up of the Empire: they are for all intents and purposes no longer an Imperial province, even if they may be by law.

On your next point, I've already discussed it previously. Thalmor Justiciars are only active enforcers of the Concordat in Skyrim, and even so the Empire was only begrudgingly forced to allow this due to the Stormcloak Rebellion: Cyrodiil and High Rock do not have Thalmor openly running around. If you mean Thalmor agents, they're quite literally all over Tamriel: independent Hammerfell is crawling with them, and Skyrim would be no exception if it were independent as well. Just because independent provinces pose less of a threat to the Dominion than a united Empire does not mean they wouldn't continue to manipulate politics such that no other threat to their agenda could again arise. On the note of Tullius, keep in mind that rebellions quite literally happen everywhere, especially given that this is a feudal setting: the Dominion are not exempt from this, they are simply more adept at crushing them before they become too large. The difference is scale and impact. Tullius may be adept at fighting rebels, but he has not fought a rebellion of the size or scale of the Skyrim Civil War before. There is nothing to suggest High Rock or Cyrodiil are experiencing any significant civil strife at this time, though politics may be vicious. In fact, there is more mention of political intrigue tearing at the Empire in TES III than there is in TES V. As for Hammerfell, mind that there is nothing to suggest that they actively despise the Empire: only that they did not find the terms of the Concordat agreeable, and thus seceded. Even if they did harbor ill-will against Mede, he is most certainly dead or missing after the Civil War, and beside that, they would jump at the first chance to fight the Dominion in a Second Great War. That the Dominion actively incites rebellion in Imperial provinces and attempts to instigate their secession should be evidence enough that the Empire is the only political and military power that can realistically be considered a threat to them.

The Stormcloaks have more than just the trouble of transitioning from a militia to a standing army. As I've stated, they have a pro-Imperial insurgency to combat (as, even if they did not constitute a majority, supporters of the Empire would still comprise a very large minority), their entire province would be ravaged by warfare, the Dragons, and the Vampires, and the population from which they would be expected to draw warriors would be severely depleted as a result of so many concurrent crises. More than this, Skyrim is dependent on trade with the rest of the Empire, and only some of these routes are by sea: most go through Imperial territory, and the Empire would be free to either enact blockades or to heavily tax caravans. Additionally, a Stormcloak victory would cause a severe divide between the Nords and the Cyrods/Bretons, peoples who have relied on each other quite literally for hundreds of years: not only is a victory against the Dominion impossible without the resources and manpower of Cyrodiil and High Rock, it would result in lasting feuds as a result of war grievances that would severely undermine any future efforts at toppling the Thalmor. On the reverse, an Imperial victory would be far less damaging to Cyro-Nordic and Breto-Nordic relations, as the anger of the war-grieved would be levied at Ulfric rather than Skyrim, and the Legion is in a far better position to combat whatever remaining insurrectionists are left in Skyrim, given both their experience with counter insurgency and the fact that they may pull men and resources from High Rock and the Imperial Heartland. While it would be feasible for an independent Skyrim and an independent Hammerfell to ally with one another, the independence of Skyrim alienates Cyrodiil and High Rock. As for the Dunmer, keep in mind that the Nords and Dunmer have a deep-seated distrust, and in many cases outright hatred, that goes back hundreds of years if not more. More than that, you're talking about two of the more conservative factions of society in both cultures. While the Redoran have a healthy respect for warriors, and indeed had great respect for the Imperial Legion in TES III, they did not support the Empire or foreign presence in Morrowind. In fact, it's rather specifically mentioned in TES III that the Redoran distrust the Nords most of any of the races of Man, specifically because of their history of conflict. Even their more progressive leadership relate that they feel the Nord Retainers of House Redoran would very easily abandon their posts and side with the enemy if again Morrowind was invaded by Skyrim: that distrust hasn't gone anywhere since then, and is plainly seen in TES V once you enter Windhelm.

I also have no shortage of points I can relate, but I feel this is a situation where it would be best to agree to disagree. I have no reason to believe a Stormcloak victory would not play into the Thalmor agenda, especially when they engineered the entire situation to begin with.